Jim Boulter.  Now well into my second year here, I’m really happy to be here.  I’ve enjoyed teaching a series of quant classes over the past year, continuing into the current semester.  Meanwhile, my research has gotten underway.  My first student, Matt Hooper, has done great work helping me to get two experimental cryostat chambers operational.  Together, we are working to reproduce conditions of the atmospheres of the outer planets and their satellites.  To begin, our efforts are focused on growing thin films of mixtures of organic ices to simulate nucleation and condensation of cloud particles in Titan’s atmosphere, recently confirmed by the Cassini and Huygens probes.  Future projects may include hydrated ammonia ices characteristic of clouds predicted to exist throughout Jupiter’s atmosphere.  I’ve recently taken on another student to begin developing a field research project.  We will be collaborating with the biology department to collect meteorological data and then we’ll proceed by using various wet chemical techniques to look at several atmospheric constituents as tracers for pollution sources. On a more personal note, this month my wife and I moved to Strum (about 20 miles south of Eau Claire on Hwy. D) where she was installed as the pastor at Immanuel Lutheran Church.  This followed her internship at Trinity Lutheran Church in Eau Claire for the previous year.  So now we are adjusting to the excitement of small-town life!  And as we have found more time to get to know the greater Upper Midwest, we have explored the north shore of Lake Superior – this is a place we need to spend more time!  Closer to home, my wife and I still both enjoy singing in the Master Singers, a local choral group led by fellow faculty member in Music and Theater Arts, Gary Schwartzhoff.

Fred King. Fred spent most of the year checking Hilbert transforms – forwards, backwards, sidewards, etc. etc. This left no time for other activity that normally keep a person sane. His math skills have improved significantly.

Jim Phillips. Dr. Jim spent the first part of last year on sabbatical at the University of Minnesota (w/ Prof. Chris Cramer) becoming a proficient practitioner in the field of computational chemistry. This was a very productive endeavor (which will ultimately lead to several publications once I catch up), and marks the beginning of a long-term collaboration with Dr. Cramer. Moreover, it has lead to a broadening of my overall research scope, and my students are now running quality computations on a daily basis. This adventure has also had an impact on my teaching and curriculum development - CHEM 103 & 115 students are now running computations in the process of learning VSEPR theory in the laboratory setting. Furthermore, we will do a few computational exercises in 432 this, in hopes of passing these on to the new PHYS/ANAL lab course. Otherwise, it is good to back on the “rainbow” hall full-time, and have had fun teaching 115, 432, and the Global Climate Change version of CHEM 191 during winterim. As far as personal things go, Maggie and Ellie are growing up VERY fast, now in third grade. Alan Gengenbach and I have been coaching them and fellow 2nd & 3rd graders in Park and Rec. soccer the past couple of years. Katy is still chasing the financing to open a café in downtown EC (Café Nina – Nina is our 2 year-old Basset Hound). Also, I have been playing in a band for the first time in many years. We are called “Point B” and it is a collaboration that involves ex-members of “Jeff White and the Front Porch” and “Day Old Bread”. We are playing around EC as well as a few places n the outskirts, so come out and see if you’re around.

Steve Drucker. This is my eighth year on the faculty, and I am greatly enjoying a yearlong sabbatical. The sabbatical has been a terrific opportunity for me to launch new projects in my research lab. I am taking advantage of a new pulsed laser system that is residing in my lab during the term of my sabbatical. The laser was acquired via a collaborative NSF-MRI grant that involves investigators at several PUI’s within the Upper Midwest. The laser extends the frequency coverage that is available for our spectroscopy experiments, and also makes possible new double-resonance experiments that will be accomplished in concert with the existing laser system in my laboratory. I am also eagerly planning the construction of a vacuum chamber that will provide supersonic jet-cooling capability for our experiments. The jet-cooling technique is the definitive way to eliminate spectral congestion in modern gas-phase spectroscopy experiments, but has been previously too costly to set up in my lab. It will now be possible, thanks to recent funding from PRF, to construct the apparatus during the upcoming summer. Further funding, from NSF-RUI, will allow my group to develop new spectroscopic approaches for probing molecular triplet states. The triplet excited-state species are very important in photochemistry, but difficult to study spectroscopically due to the forbiddenness of transitions from the ground electronic state. On the home front, I especially enjoy hearing about my son Ben’s daily life at Lakeshore School, where he is in kindergarten. I also visit his classroom weekly to read to the kids. My classroom experience teaching Chem 115 has not quite prepared me for this, but I am adapting to the new experience. My wife, Diane, continues her strong presence as an editor in the University News Bureau, and as a violinist in the Chippewa Valley Symphony.

Cheryl Muller. I wrapped up my stint as department chair in May 2005 and happily passed the baton to Scott Hartsel.  The summer saw a family trip to Germany and Sweden, where meatballs, herring, and chocolate can be found everywhere.  Summer also started my sabbatical year, where I am working on writing case studies for teaching organic chemistry.  This involves reviewing real world processes and reaction sequences for reactions studied in Organic I and II, and building the bridge between an example reaction discussed in lecture and a similar reaction used in a synthetic route to make the next anti-Parkinson's drug.   If you have organic chemistry from your workplace that would motivate students, or illustrate a principle or reaction, I would love to hear about it.  I'm also trying to help more of our majors get placed in chemistry lab and business internships over the summer.

Alan Gengenbach. Another year has come and gone quickly. I taught our new Chem 103 course last semester and I believe it is a definite improvement over 101. I am excited to get the chance to teach it again this coming semester so I can make further changes while the course is fresh in my mind. My research work concerning metalloporphyrin catalyzed oxidation of azo dyes was funded by Research Corporation and my students made good progress over the summer. I am hoping to publish the results in the near future. Over the summer, the undeveloped lot next to my house came up for sale. So, I am now the proud owner of one of the best poison ivy stands in the county.

Mike Carney. I spent a large part of the past year writing a review article for Comprehensive Organometallic Chemistry III.  My contribution reviewed organometallic chromium compounds appearing in the literature between 1994 and 2003.  Let’s just say there were quite a few compounds to cover.  It was a worthwhile project, but one that I will not take on again – at least not in the near future!  On the research front, we continued our collaborative work with Chevron Phillips, resulting in a poster presentation at the Fall 2005 ACS meeting in Washington, three patent applications, and two papers to be submitted to Organometallics.  Thanks to the wonderful efforts of my research students, the project has been successful enough to convince Chevron Phillips to continue funding during 2006.

Marc McEllistrem. 2005 was a rather busy year for me.  During the spring semester I taught 1/3rd of Environmental Chemistry for the first time while also teaching Chem 115.  I am also pleased to say that we finally developed a successful NSF proposal - after “only” five tries - to fund two new HPLCs that will be used in various courses (mostly analytical and biochemistry) and research.  Two other proposals were not so fortunate. The university formed a Materials Science Center about a year ago, based on the research interests of twelve or so faculty in biology, chemistry, geology, and physics.  This past year an outside Advisory Board was formed to help guide our efforts, collaborations with local industry has increased, and the university has agreed to hire an instrument technician (for which the search is on-going).  All of these have included my involvement.  The Center also hosted Gov. Doyle in the Spring to announce plans for a new Discovery Institute, to be built in Madison.
In the fall, I started a two-semester sabbatical at the U of MN.  At the same time, two new collaborations emerged, one with a biochemist at Iowa State and a second with a chemist at UW-Stevens Point.  All of these projects, along with those already going at UWEC, have kept the lab plenty busy. At home, our three kids continue to grow and wear us out at the same time.  It’s a rare evening that I have energy to do something past 8 pm.  But I wouldn’t have it any other way…

Kurt Wiegel. Well, we've had a busy year in the Wiegel Research Group. I graduated my first student from UW-EC, Don Rogness. He is currently graduate student at Iowa State, and by all accounts is doing very well. Don, Paul and I attended the San Diego ACS meeting and had a lot of fun. The biggest changes to our group came from getting two of our papers accepted (one in Liquid Crystals and one in the Journal of Applied Polymer Science. As the semester wound down, bereft as I was of two research students lost to P-Chem, my wife and I had our third child on 12/16. Joshua Thomas was born at 8:10 am, and the world celebrated the birth of another organic chemist. Mother and baby are doing well, father is just adequate, but what’s changed there. We're primed and ready to go with two new projects for the new year. Let’s hope its as exciting as the last.

Thao Yang. Last year (2005-06) was an interesting year for me, I taught the survey of biochemistry course (Chem 150) three times in a row, plus Chem 103 and 104.  These classes seem to have more and more students nowadays.  I enjoyed teaching these students in the classroom a lot.  This year the Dept. has undergone major curricular changes; these changes will mostly take place next year, 2006-07.  We deployed many changes for the Chem 103 experiments; it was a lot of fun.   Last summer, I taught chemistry for two groups of Hmong pre-college students.  I could tell the students enjoyed hands-on chemistry.  In the previous summer when I exploded several balloons of hydrogen gas and mixture of oxygen and hydrogen gases to celebrate the conclusion of this project, our pictures and hydrogen-balloons exploding even made it to the Leader Telegram.  You are always welcome to come back and visit us and share with us what you are doing in your career.

Jason Halfen. The Halfen group continues to be active in the area of synthetic bioinorganic chemistry. In 2005, we published 7 papers including a full paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society and a breakthrough paper in Science. We are approaching the end of our NSF award period, so the finger-crossing and prayer-candle-lighting for a successful renewal has begun again in earnest. Three students (Melissa Perkinson, Tony Hull, and Luke Slominski) are currently working in my lab. Away from work, I am happy to report that our daughter Caroline contines to develop as a healthy and happy 16-month old. In need of more space, the Halfens moved into a new home last August, this home even closer to campus than the last one! I have also taken my pursuit of walleyes to the semi-professional level, winning a little $$ in tournaments last year and becoming a licensed guide this year. This summer will find me working hard, both in the lab and on the water.