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Jeffrey R. Lomprey - (jlomprey@foley.com) (Current Chair; Member: 2014 - Present) Dr. Jeff Lomprey is a partner and intellectual property lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP where his practice focuses on patent preparation, both U.S. and foreign prosecution, counseling, due diligence, and litigation support. He is a member of the firm’s Chemical, Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical Practice as well as the Life Sciences Industry Team. Jeff’s interests span a diverse array of chemical and mechanical technologies. He has significant experience in the areas of small molecule chemistry, pharmaceuticals, batteries, catalysts, polymers, electrochemistry, organic light emitting diodes, mechanical devices, and medical devices. Prior to joining Foley, Jeff was a senior research chemist at Gentex Corporation from 1997-2002, where he was involved in the development and production of automatically dimming automobile mirrors. Jeff earned his Juris Doctorate from the University of Wisconsin Law School (cum laude, 2005), where he was a member of the Dean’s list. He earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Kentucky (1993), and was the recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Student Researcher Award. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point (1988). Dr. Lomprey is admitted to practice in Wisconsin and before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. He is a member the Wisconsin and American Bar Associations, the American Chemical Society and the American Intellectual Property Law Association. |
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Amy S. Wong - (wong@lanl.gov) (Member: 2014 - Present) Dr. Amy Wong is a program manager of Plutonium Strategy Infrastructure at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico. Amy received her Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from the University of Maryland College Park (1990). She earned her Ph.D. in Radiochemistry from the University of Kentucky (1994) and was the recipient of DOE/EPSCoR Doctoral Fellowship (1992-93) and Lyman T. Johnson Minority Fellowship (1991-92). Amy’s background is diverse with the in-depth knowledge and more than 20 years experiences in the analytical chemistry, nondestructive assay, nuclear facility operations, project management, safety basis, environmental compliance, radiation protection, safeguards and security, and waste management. Amy is a member of the American Chemical Society. |
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Fumie Sunahori - (fsunahori@franklincollege.edu) (Member: 2014 - Present) Dr. Fumie Sunahori was born and grew up in the central part of Japan. After graduating from high school in Japan, she came to the United States for higher education. After she obtained a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry specializing in molecular spectroscopy from the University of Kentucky under the supervision of Prof. Dennis Clouthier. Dr. Sunahori spent three years at the University of Alberta as a post-doctoral fellow performing research in high-resolution infrared spectroscopy of biological molecules. She then decided to teach in a small liberal arts college environment to encourage undergraduate students to be familiar with research. |
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Erin Peters - (fe.peters@uky.edu) (Member: 2014 - Present) Dr. Erin E. Peters earned her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Kentucky (2014). Prior to attending UK, Erin earned a B.S. in chemistry from the University of the Cumberlands (2006). She is currently a Lecturer in the UK Department of Chemistry teaching general and analytical chemistry. Dr. Peters' research interests are in nuclear chemistry, particularly in nuclear structure and gamma-ray spectroscopy. In the summers, she continues to work at the University of Kentucky Accelerator Laboratory (www.pa.uky.edu/accelerator). She is a member of the American Physical Society, as well as the American Chemical Society and its Division of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology. In addition, she is the current Treasurer and President-elect of the Lexington Section of the ACS. |
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Susan Griffith - (jsgrif00@uky.edu) (Member: 2014 - Present) J. Susan Griffith MD has been a College Health physician at U.K. since 1992. She is a Board-Certified Family Physician and previously worked in Urgent Care in Cincinnati OH and as a faculty member of the Department of Family Medicine at UK. She received her B.S. in Physical Anthropology in 1977 from UK and completed her MD in 1982 at UK. Her residency in Family Medicine was from 1982-85 at UK and she was the Chief Resident from 1984-85. Dr. Griffith enjoyed her time in the Chemistry-Physics building, taking 20 hours of Chemistry courses and 10 hours of Physics courses as part of the Pre-Med requirements. It was also an interesting experience for her to have her father as a teacher. Her dad, Charles H.H. Griffith, was the Lab Supervisor for Chem-115 from 1964-1993. At University Health Service at UK, she does all the minor surgical procedures in addition to regular medical care for UK students and employees. Her volunteer work includes being the Research Chair for the International Council of Multiple Birth Organization and the Research Interpreter for Multiples of America. Dr. Griffith adds , “As part of the eulogy I gave for my dad, I told everyone how much my dad loved Chemistry and how much he loved teaching the students of the University of Kentucky. I want to honor his memory by doing whatever I can to help the UK Chemistry Department continue to be a strong scientific department that cares about the students of UK.” |
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Peter Nickias - (Member: 2014 - Present) Peter received his BA in Chemistry from North Park College (Chicago, IL), his PhD in Organometallic Chemistry with Jack Selegue at the University of Kentucky and did postdoctoral work with Paul Gassman at the University of Minnesota. Peter began his career with Dow in 1989 where he worked in Dow’s Central Research laboratories in the development of homogeneous olefin polymerization catalysts. More recently, Peter became the technical lead on the development of CIGS photovoltaic systems directed towards the POWERHOUSETM shingle technology. Peter has been Dow Inventor of the Year in 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2013 and was the recipient of Dow’s Excellence in Science award in 2001. He has 20 publications, 45 issued U.S. patents and has served on various boards. |
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Benny G. Johnson - (bennygjohnson@gmail.com) (Member: 2014 - Present) Benny received Bachelor of Science degrees in chemistry and mathematics from UK in 1989. His CHE 395 undergraduate research project with Prof. Paul L. Corio on computer elucidation of reaction mechanisms won first place in BFGoodrich's prestigious Waldo Semon Undergraduate Research Competition. Benny received his Ph.D. in theoretical chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University in 1993, working with Prof. John A. Pople, a 1998 Nobel laureate in chemistry, on density functional methods for quantum mechanical study of large molecules. He has contributed substantially to several academic, commercial and government chemistry research software projects, including Gaussian, NWChem, and Q-Chem, which he co-founded. Benny's current research interests are in advanced methods for educational software. As president and co-founder of Quantum Simulations, Inc., he developed the first artificial intelligence-based tutoring systems for chemistry, subsequently expanding to mathematics, business and special education. He is currently Director of Research and Development for Acrobatiq by VitalSource, a Pittsburgh-based company producing intelligent adaptive courseware, where he leads several efforts in learning analytics and data-driven course optimization. Benny is the author of over fifty peer-reviewed academic publications. He is a recipient of a national Tibbetts Award, the highest recognition given by the federal government to small businesses for innovative research, and in 2007 he was inducted into UK's College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Hall of Fame. |
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Tanea Reed - (tanea.reed@eku.edu) (Member: 2014 - Present) Dr. Reed received her PhD in biological chemistry from the University of Kentucky and worked under the guidance of Dr. D. Allan Butterfield. While at UK, she received the Lyman T. Johnson Minority Fellowship and the UK Woman’s Club Endowed Fellowship. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. In 2010, Dr. Reed received the Hermann Esterbauer award in Turin, Italy for her work on lipid peroxidation in Alzheimer’s disease. She is currently a member of the international selection committee for this award. Dr. Reed is currently an associate professor of biochemistry at Eastern Kentucky University, where she serves as a research mentor for undergraduate and graduate students. She was recently awarded an area enrichment award from the National Institutes of Health for her research which focuses on post injury treatments for moderate traumatic brain injury. |
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Vince Stapp - (Member: 2017 - Present) Vince earned his BS in Chemistry from the University of Kentucky in 1991, and received the Undergraduate Service Award with focused interests in Mass Spectrometry and Separation Science. During his time as an undergraduate, he was a freshman chemistry lab teaching assistant and he conducted his undergraduate research with Dr. John Patterson on new synthesis routes for n-substituted pyrroles. Vince spent one year as a staff scientist at PTRL, Inc. in Richmond, KY developing quantitative GC/MS methods for environmental fate studies of pesticides and herbicides. He then began his career at Procter & Gamble in 1992, and has worked as an analytical chemist and technical leader in several different P&G business units including Skin/Beauty Care, Corporate Research Division Mass Spectrometry group, and Upstream Paper Technology. His focus during this time was developing MS(n), accurate mass, GC/MS, and LC/MS methods for structure elucidation and quantitative analysis, and worked in close partnership with P&G technologists on biodegradable polymer feedstocks (Nodax), bleach catalysts, phospholipids (Olestra), and adhesives. Vince has a broad background in material science, volatiles analysis and olfaction, mass spectrometry, separation science, and complex technical problem solving. His last 17 years has been in the Baby Care business as a Senior Scientist where he has been an analytical leader for the polymer films and nonwovens material development area. Vince’s passion is people development. He is active as a technical and career mentor both inside and outside of P&G. |
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Dana Baum - (Member 2017 - Present) Dr. Baum earned her BA in Chemistry with a concentration in Biochemistry cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis and worked as a lab technician on the Human Genome Project at the Washington University Genome Sequencing Center prior to her graduate studies at UK. She earned her PhD in biological chemistry from the University of Kentucky (2005) working with Dr. Stephen Testa on catalytic RNA. Dr. Baum was then a Kirschstein-NRSA (NIH) postdoctoral fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the lab of Dr. Scott Silverman, where her work focused on catalytic DNA. Currently, Dr. Baum as an Associate Professor of Chemistry and is the Chemistry Graduate Program Coordinator at Saint Louis University (St. Louis, MO). Her research group (Twitter and Instagram: @BaumLabSLU) consists of graduate and undergraduate students investigating the abilities of functional nucleic acids for a variety of applications, including sensors and biofuel cells. In addition to her involvement with the local chapter of the American Chemical Society, Dr. Baum is also the Southeast Region Director for Sigma Xi. |
