The Freshman Research Initiative:
A New Model for Teaching through Research
students under the guidance of a Research Educator, a special position created
within the University that enables post-doctoral researchers to impart their
expertise and develop teaching skills of their own. After the first semester,
students are encouraged to continue their research over the summer and then
again in the Fall semester of the following year. Upon ‘graduation’ from the
FRI, students typically enter a research lab with finely honed skill sets that are
of great value to their new mentors. These trained students are ideal candidates
for working in faculty research groups and in industry as interns. We have
already developed strong relationships with the Intel Foundation, and Merck
and Pfizer which are interested in supporting this ground-breaking educational
paradigm, but also in the new workforce it promises. This year the FRI has
ramped up to a capacity of 500 students each year (up from 350 in 2007-2008);
a quarter of the incoming Freshman population for the College each year will
have this opportunity. We aim to accurately represent the demography of Texas,
involving 50% women and 50% minority students in this program. There is no
comparable program of this size anywhere in the nation.
—Sarah Simmons
The University of Texas Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry would like to extend its thanks to Pfizer
Inc. for its ongoing support of the department’s programs, such as the Freshman Research Initiative. We would
especially like to recognize Dr. Ned Mozier who has been a long-time advocate on behalf of our department.
Research Streams
Small Molecule Synthesis Nanomaterials for
Professor Stephen F. Martin
Chemical Catalysis
Kristen Procko
Professor Keith Stevenson
How do synthetic ligands interact
Dr. Katherine Marvin
with a protein?
How do you make new types of
Designing ligands that bind well to
nanoparticles to catalyze reac-
proteins is a fundamental problem in
tions?
drug design. Because proteins are
In this FRI Stream, students synthe-
complex and dynamic, it is difficult to
size nanometer-scale metal nanopar-
predict which compounds will bind ef-
ticles, and use them as catalysts
fectively to them. In this FRI Stream,
to efficiently convert reactants into
students design and synthesize mol-
useful products that have potential
ecules with small structural variations
applications for fuel production, en-
to serve as ligands for the protein
vironmental remediation, and spe-
MUP1. By analyzing the thermody-
cialty chemicals production. Our lab
namics of binding for each of these
uses “dendrimers”, a class of large,
molecules, the effect of increasing li-
branched organic molecules, as “con-
gand hydrophobicity can be assessed.
tainers” or “molecular templates” to
These results may facilitate predic-
synthesize nanomaterials with uni-
tions about the relationship between
form size, shape, and composition.
ligand structure and binding.
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