Lisa McElwee-White is in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Florida, and works on applications of organometallic chemistry to problems in materials science, catalysis and synthetic methodology.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

My mother gave me science toys and took me to museum classes because she was frustrated that she couldn’t become a scientist. I loved playing with a chemistry set (completely unsupervised!) in the basement of my parents’ house. Once I got the chance to do undergraduate research at the beginning of my freshman year, I was hooked. I never considered majoring in anything else.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be – and why?

I’d love to play in a major symphony orchestra but my skill level as a musician isn’t anywhere near that high. I’ll just have to keep my day job as a chemistry professor.

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

We are working on several things: green chemistry methods for carbonylation, electrocatalysts for direct oxidation of alcohols in fuel cells, and design and synthesis of organometallic precursors for the chemical vapour deposition of inorganic thin films. All of these are interesting and important problems but I think our most distinctive work at the moment is in mechanism based design of CVD precursors. I would like to see our approach spread through the materials community, so that people think more like chemists when looking at deposition chemistry.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?

Rosalind Franklin, because I’d like to hear the story from her side.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab – and what was it?

I think it was in about 1987. I prepared a batch of (CO)5W(THF) as starting material for a student. I learned rapidly that my time as a faculty member was so fragmented that it was not possible to synthesize sensitive organometallic compounds and get the workup done before the material decomposed. My current generation of students can’t even conceive of me doing an experiment. They cringe when I touch things.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one music album would you take with you?

The book would be something by Terry Pratchett, probably Good Omens. The album would be a tougher choice. Half of me would want something baroque, maybe one of the Interpreti Veniziani recordings of Vivaldi. The other half of me couldn’t give up my Springsteen albums so I might end up with my hands on Born to Run.

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions – and why?

Paul Wender. I’m dying to find out if he can answer a question within the 100 word limit.

Scott Mabury is in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Toronto, and primarily works on the environmental fate, distribution and persistence of fluorinated chemicals.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

Growing up on a farm combined with a Mom who taught Junior High science, a great high school chemistry teacher in Potosi, Missouri (Bill Nelson) and topped off with a course called “environmental chemistry” at college probably capture most of the ‘what’.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be – and why?

Either a brain researcher or a farmer though I actually do the latter one day a week now. Probably best to keep the farming job as the one I play at since the rewards are mostly psychic ones. I find the science of the human brain fascinating and extremely challenging.

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

A number of interesting things, although exploring why humans are so contaminated with perfluorinated acids is particularly intriguing. Specifically, we synthesize various polyfluorinated phosphates, that are commonly used as food contact paper chemicals to impart water and oil repellency, to explore their reactive properties. We just published some work that showed we could measure ppb concentrations of these in human serum, thus we are specifically interested in their metabolic reactions and whether they are significant contributors to the body burden of PFOA and related perfluorinated acids. This involves live-animal metabolism studies along with more focused investigations of the reactive intermediates.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?

Winston Churchill since I’ve taken on an additional job in university administration and successful leadership is on my mind.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab – and what was it?

Probably not since my early years as an assistant professor though I love designing experiments. I do note we are doing a largish field experiment now on the fate of food contact paper chemicals in an agroecosystem. This has me riding my John Deere tractor disking 600 tons of paper sludge on to 20 acres, on my farm, and then planting it into soybeans. I have an undergrad research student who follows along obtaining and ultimately analyzing the samples. My experimental contributions are not so scientific but they are necessary to the experiment.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one music album would you take with you?

Like publishing research, quality is more important than quantity but quantity still matters (especially on a desert island) so I would bring War and Peace. Harder pick for music so perhaps some Led Zeppelin would go well with Tolstoy.

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions – and why?

Wow, this is harder than I would have thought as there are so many. Perhaps Mario Molina or Sherwood Rowland as they are scientific heroes of mine and I be interested seeing their personas fleshed out.

George Stanley is in the Department of Chemistry at Louisiana State University, and works on developing new homogeneous bimetallic catalysts and catalytic processes.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

I became fascinated with science in the 4th grade (1962) when I read the Disney book Our Friend the Atom, followed by a large number of other science books in my small town’s library. I got a chemistry set a year later and started playing around with standard “cook-book” reactions that progressed into preparing my own flash and smoke powder mixtures for fireworks. My school asked us every year what we wanted to be when we grew up and from 4th grade through 11th grade I said nuclear physicist. Taking calculus in my senior year in high school made me realize that I did not have the math abilities to be a physicist, so I “dropped down” to chemistry, which I was enjoying more and more.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be – and why?

My first choice would be science teacher in a primary/secondary school setting. I am a gifted, enthusiastic teacher and have a broad love of science. I see a high fraction of students in primary and secondary schools here in the USA not getting good general science educations because their teachers do not have much appreciation or understanding of science. Unfortunately, there are very few hands-on science activities in most schools nor connections to everyday real life. If I had to get away from science or teaching, I would be interested in a business career. I have always been interested in business topics and have worked in a small-town pharmacy, a zinc refinery, and a steel mill. I have seen how poor management decisions have led to a company’s decay and eventual closing (long before our current economic situation).

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

Our newest project is developing transition-metal catalysts for alkene hydration, which is the reaction of alkenes with water to produce linear alcohols or other oxygen-containing products. There are no examples of this for unactivated alkenes and Dr. James Roth, discoverer of the Monsanto Acetic Acid process, has called alkene hydration catalysis one of the 10 unsolved problems of industrial catalysis. We submitted a “blue-sky” (i.e., no preliminary results) proposal to Sasol North America and they took a big chance and funded this exploratory project. Although we are still in the early stages of studying this, we believe that we have indeed catalyzed a reaction between water and simple 1-alkenes under mild conditions. But the situation, naturally, turns out to be complicated with alkene oligomerization taking over to give a completely unexpected primary product.

As to where we would like to see this lead? A practical and environmentally friendly industrial catalyst would be fantastic. It is very rare, however, for academically discovered catalysts to make the transition to industrial commodity chemicals, so we are very realistic about this.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?

Tough question! Ben Franklin would be my choice (without a lot of deep thinking). I grew up in eastern PA and visited the Franklin Institute, a wonderful science museum in Philadelphia, many times as a kid. Ben Franklin was a remarkable person: scientist, politician, businessman, diplomat, and bon vivant. As a scientist I would like his insight into the politics that went on for the Declaration of Independence and thoughts on the constitution and the compromises involved, especially with regards to the second amendment (“right to bear arms”) as it relates to the USA today.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab – and what was it?

Last week! Although I don’t do synthesis anymore, I do help out with our in situ catalyst spectroscopic studies (FT-IR & NMR) and when new autoclave runs are being done. I helped one graduate student condense and transfer butadiene to an autoclave for a hydroformylation run; another with setting up an ethylene hydroformylation experiment; and a senior student with a FT-IR study using a new silicon crystal attenuated total reflectance reaction cell. At US$660 per crystal, I usually mount and dismount the crystal in the cell for reaction studies and cleaning.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one music album would you take with you?

Book: either The Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of America, 1932-1972 by William Manchester or the Boy Scout Manual. The Boy Scout Manual if survival looked difficult, otherwise the Glory and the Dream as a thick and engaging history of the USA during some remarkable times.

Music: Hmmm – batteries wouldn’t last long (solar power?), Best of the Moody Blues ranks as one of my favourite groups and I don’t get tired of listening to them.

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions – and why?

Margaret Cavanaugh (National Science Foundation – National Science Board). Marge was my NSF program director a long time ago and had a very positive impact on my career. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her much over the last 10 years as she has moved away from chemistry. Marge has been in both academics (chemistry professor) and involved in high level NSF activities. I’d like to keep her thinking about chemistry and Reactions might help.