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Recent News
Prerna Successfully Defends PhD on Molecular Simulation of Nanoporous Materials
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Congratulations to Prerna from the Siepmann group on successfully defending her PhD dissertation today, September 23! Her dissertation, "Nanoporous Materials in Action: Modeling Gas Separation and Storage," developed molecular simulation-based approaches for accelerating the discovery of nanoporous materials for energy-efficient gas separation and storage. Congratulations, Dr. Prerna, and best wishes for the next chapter!
Prof. Sapna Sarupria Delivers Department of Chemistry Seminar
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Prof. Sapna Sarupria delivered her promotion seminar, "Formulations for Biologics: A Tango Between Biomolecules and Solvent Governs Stability." Her talk described how simulations can elucidate the molecular-level mechanisms by which small molecule excipients improve the temperature stability of therapeutic proteins, vaccines, and gene therapy products — with the goal of reducing the cold chain burden on biological formulation development. She also presented novel computational approaches for studying the stability of virus capsids in excipient solutions. Congratulations to Prof. Sarupria on this important milestone!
Prof. Kade Head-Marsden Receives Outstanding Graduate Education Award
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Prof. Kade Head-Marsden was presented with the Department of Chemistry's inaugural Outstanding Graduate Education Award at the department's fall Kick-Off seminar. This award recognized her teaching of CHEM 8552: Quantum Mechanics II, a graduate course covering reduced density matrices and dissipative dynamics. Congratulations to Prof. Head-Marsden on this recognition!
Prof. Bartel is awarded a DOE grant through the inaugural Genesis competition
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Prof. Bartel is awarded a DOE grant through the inaugural Genesis competition led by the Kortshagen group. (CSE also has something on this: https://cse.umn.edu/college/news/doe-genesis-mission-funding-advance-ai-breakthroughs)
GenAI & Science at the University of Minnesota
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Profs. Sapna Sarupria and Chris Bartel co-organized the Frontiers of GenAI & Science workshop at the University of Minnesota in August 2026, the fourth installment of the Minnesota AI for Science Series. Sarupria and Bartel led the materials science component of the workshop. Learn more at the workshop website.
Prof. Chris Bartel awarded an ARAP-E grant!
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Prof. Bartel is awarded an ARPA-E grant through the Magnetic Acceleration Generating New Innovations and Tactical Outcomes(MAGNITO) program led by the Wang group. Congratulations to Chris and the team!
Midwest Undergraduate Computational Chemistry Consortium
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We hosted the Midwest Undergraduate Computational Chemistry Consortium (MU3C) summer conference in July where we had ~30 undergraduate researchers join us here on the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus! It was great to hear about all the exciting research happening at undergraduate institutions across the Midwest and beyond.
35th Midwest Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics Conference
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We hosted the 35th Midwest Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (MTSM) Conference in June where we had ~75 researchers join us here on the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus! There was a lot of UMN research representation, including talks from Tim Tan, Jane Schlesinger, and Gopal Parthasarathay as well as poster presentations from Chris Akiki and AJ Lannerd. It was great to bring MTSM back to UMN for the first time since 2012 and the third time in the history of this excellent conference.
REU students join the CTC for summer research!
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We have a cohort of REU students, through both MRSEC and NSF/Lando programs, joining CTC groups this summer! This group includes:
56th Midwest Theoretical Chemistry Conference
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We hosted the 56th Midwest Theoretical Chemistry Conference this past weekend where we had over 100 researchers join us here on the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus! There was a lot of UMN research representation.