Josh Sebree, graduate student, 2006. Josh is originally from Salina, KS. He first got interested in chemistry when his 8th grade teacher accidentally blew up a demonstration. Josh attended The University of Kansas. While in attendance, he participated in the creation of a chemistry demonstration show "Frozen Flames University" where characters representing fire, Dr. Pyro, and ice, Dr. Cool, dueled it out to see who was the top. The show included cheesy lines, colorful explosions, and singing and dancing in an attempt to raise interest in the sciences in the younger generation and performed up to 22 times per year. Josh participated in two undergraduate research projects at KU, Calculating Henry's Law Coefficients in CO2 Expanded Solvent under Dr. Laird and Isotopic Fingerprints of World Coffee under Dr. Gonzales. He also spent the summer of 2004 at the University of Regensburg in Germany doing helium beam research with Dr. Slenczka. Josh entered Purdue as a graduate student and joined the Zwier group in fall of 2006. Outside of work he enjoys reading, riding his bike, hiking, and traveling the world. Back to Main Group Page

Anna Gutberlet, post-doctoral fellow, 2010. Anna was born (and raised) in Gelsenkichen Buer / North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. She studied Chemistry in Prof. M. Havenith's group at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and received her Ph.D. in July 2009. Anna joined the Zwier group (only recently) in January 2010. Besides doing research she enjoys reading, music & walking. Back to Alumni Page

Chirantha P. Rodrigo, Ph. D., 2010. Chirantha is a native Sri Lankan and joined the Zwier group in 2005. He first discovered his interest in chemistry when he was studying in Veluwana College and DSSC, in Colombo. Chirantha completed his B.Sc (Chem Hons, 2nd Lower) at the University of Colombo (2001) and moved to UNLV(2002) in Nevada to complete his M.S in chemistry. He loves traveling and enjoys playing cricket and interested in photography. Back to Alumni Page

Bill James, Ph. D., 2009, post-doctoral researcher, 2009-10. Bill graduated from the Zwier Group with a Ph. D. in physical chemistry in December 2009, after completing studies of the single-conformation laser spectroscopy of synthetic foldamers. Following Bill's work as a graduate student, he accepted a post-doctoral position with the Zwier Group, where he stayed until November 2010. In November 2010, Bill accepted the position of Development Scientist with SCHOTT North America, Inc. (Duryea, PA), where his research will be centered around the development of new materials. Back to Alumni Page

Christian Müller, post-doctoral fellow. Christian was born in Bucharest (Romania) and moved with his family to the lovely town Spangenberg in Germany, located in the Hessian low mountain range, when he was six years old. He studied Chemistry and Philosophy at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (Germany) and the Universidade da Coruña (Spain). He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Göttingen University in July 2005 (group of Prof. J. Troe). He enjoys reading, playing guitar, running and the sun. Christian joined the Zwier group in September 2006.Back to Alumni Page

Josh Newby, Ph.D. 2009. Newby is a post-doctoral researcher with Prof. Mary Wirth at Purdue University. Newby, who has aspirations (delusions?) of grandeur, grew up on a farm in central Illinois. Being the Newby is never easy, but is useful in shifting the blame, since a Newby doesn’t know anything yet, he cannot be responsible for accidents. Newby obtained his bachelors degrees in chemistry and secondary education from Eastern Illinois University. At EIU, Newby worked on Fourier Transform Microwave spectroscopy of weakly bound systems with his partner in crime Elmo. If he ever has free time again, Newby would enjoy hiking, astronomy and getting some sleep. Back to alumni page.

Tracy LeGreve, Ph.D. 2008. Tracy is a lecturer for the chemistry department at Butler University. Back to alumni page.

Nathan Pillsbury, Ph.D. 2008. Nathan is currently working at BP. Back to alumni page.

Alvin Shubert, Ph.D. 2008. Alvin is currently a post-doc at Argonne National Laboratory. Back to alumni page.

Esteban Baquero, Ph.D. 2008. Esteban is current working for Dow Chemical in Freeport Texas. Back to alumni page.

Ching Ping Liu, post-doctoral fellow, 2006-2007. Back to alumni page.

Jasper Clarkson, phd 2006, post-doctoral fellow 2007 . Jasper is new father currently working at Eastman Chemical Company in Kingsport, TN. Back to alumni page.

Talitha Selby, phd 2006. Talitha is currently a post-doc at Sandia National Lab. Back to alumni page.

Jaime Stearns, phd 2005. Jaime is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Professeur Thomas Rizzo at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (where there should really be some French-looking marks over some of the vowels, but since Jaime doesn't speak French adequately yet she's not going to worry about that). She is involved in a relatively new project involving the spectroscopy of cold (6 K, thermalized) protonated biomolecules and their solvent clusters. The molecules are put into the gas phase using a continuous nanospray source and accumulated in a hexapole ion trap for a duration designed to match repetition rate of the pulsed laser systems. Once released from the hexapole, the desired ion, cluster, or charge state is selected in a quadrupole mass filter, guided through an RF-only octupole, then accumulated in a 22-pole ion trap. The 22-pole trap is helium cooled to as low as 6 K. The cold ions are then probed by the laser beams (infrared, ultraviolet, or both) and photodissociate upon absorption. The resulting fragments are filtered in a second quadrupole before hitting the detector. At present only relatively small molecules, such as tryptophan and its water clusters, have been probed at low temperature. Ultimately it will be possible to study the spectroscopy of proteins such as cytochrome C or green fluorescenct protein, but these molecules are much more difficult to dissociate at low temperature because of their size and ability to absorb and redistribute large amounts of energy. One of Jaime's first projects will be to develop multilaser schemes to pump enough energy into these large molecules to dissociate them. Jaime still watches the Cubs almost every day (usually the morning after the game) thanks to the wonders of the internet. She also enjoys running along Lake Geneva, which she does nearly every day. In between the Cubs and the running, she attempts to learn to use the aforementioned machine. Back to alumni page.

Nolan Wright, undergraduate and Steven C. Beering Scholar 2001-2005. Nolan began working in the Zwier lab fall 2001. While in the Zwier lab, Nolan worked on projects studying the spectroscopy of biologically relevant molecules. He graduated from Purdue in May 2005 and will attend graduate school at the University of North Carolina beginning in Fall 2005. Back to alumni page.

Aloke Das, post-doctoral fellow, 2002-2004. Aloke joined the Zwier group in September, 2002 and worked on projects involving photochemistry of molecules important in planetary atomspheres and the study of photochemical reactions that lead to soot formation in combustion processes. Aloke is currently working at the Advanced Light Source at the University of California, Berkeley. Back to alumni page.