Dr. Vicki Wysocki, currently Professor and Ohio Eminent Scholar of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Ohio State University, will move to Georgia Tech as the next Chair of the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, beginning in October, 2024. Prof. Wysocki is a pioneer in the technique of native mass spectrometry and its application to a wide variety of questions in biology, biochemistry, and pharmaceutical science. A recent winner of the International Mass Spectrometry Foundation’s Thomson Medal, the ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry Award in Chemical Instrumentation, and the American Chemical Society’s Field and Franklin Award, Prof. Wysocki will bring exciting and synergistic capabilities in molecular analysis to the Georgia Tech campus.  Much more information is available on the Wysocki group’s web site, here.

Dr. Christopher Haines joins the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry after receiving his Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University under the guidance of Prof. Eric Nacsa. Dr. Haines’ research focused on electrocatalytic organic reactions, and his extensive teaching experience during his graduate training took full advantage of that expertise. He is also the author of a laboratory study guide for macroscale and microscale organic chemistry experiments.

Dr. Heidi van de Wouw came to our department from her position as Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Pomona College in Claremont, CA. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Johns Hopkins University in the area of organometallic materials with Prof Rebekka Klausen (thesis title: “Stable Aromatic Organoborane Materials”), where she also won awards for teaching excellence. Dr. van de Wouw then did postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Prof. Ellen Sletten at UCLA; her research interests span the fields of inorganic, organic, and analytical chemistry. 
Professors Haines and van de Wouw will both be heavily involved in the teaching and further development of our organic chemistry lecture and lab courses.

In the hiring of Dr. Jessica Deutsch, we are fortunate to have retained one of our own. Dr. Deutsch earned her Ph.D. in the laboratory of Prof. Neha Garg at Georgia Tech, with a thesis titled “Metabolomic Characterization of Coral Species Susceptible to Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease.” As this suggests, Dr. Deutsch is an expert in mass spectrometry-based metabolomics, having published more than ten papers in this area and served as a guest instructor on metabolomics data analysis at the 5th Annual North American Mass Spectrometry Summer School. She will be a key contributor to our analytic chemistry curriculum.  

Dr. Justin Kim, currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Cancer Biology at the Dana-Farber  Cancer Institute and the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School, will join our department as an Associate Professor in September, 2024. Dr. Kim earned his undergraduate degree in Chemistry and Physics at Harvard (with David Evans), Ph.D. at MIT (with Mohammad Movassaghi), and then did postdoctoral work at UC Berkeley and Stanford (with Carolyn Bertozzi). He is an outstanding organic and bioorganic chemist who has advanced new forms of bioorthogonal chemistry to facilitate drug target identification, exploration of fundamental biochemical pathways, and the development of functional materials for drug delivery and other applications. Prof. Kim’s exciting research program and publications are described here.