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This summer, William Miles, professor and head of chemistry, gave two presentations of research on the national and international levels as a direct result of research completed with the help of students.
Miles gave a talk entitled “Diastereoselective Addition of Organometallic Reagents to Chiral g-Hydroxybutenolides” at the 39th Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society at Ursinus College in May. At the 20th International Symposium: Synthesis in Organic Chemistry in Cambridge, England in July, Miles gave a poster presentation titled “Stereoselective Addition of Carbon Nucleophiles to g-Hydroxybutenolides.”
These two presentations discussed three projects that were accomplished by seven of Miles’ research students: biochemistry majors Daniela Duca ’09 (Chisinau, Moldova), Jaryd Freedman ’08 (Ambler, Pa.), and Elliot Goodzeit ’08 (Princeton, N.J.), Chiquita Palha De Sousa ’08 (Harare, Zimbabwe), who is pursing a B.S. biology and A.B. with a major in art, biochemistry graduate Kristin Hamman ’07, chemistry graduate Brandon Selfridge ’05, and chemistry and French major Pui-In Tang ’08 (Yuen Long N.T., Hong Kong).
Duca, Freedman, Goodzeit, De Sousa, Hamman, and Selfridge contributed to two projects. One is being published in Heterocyclic Chemistry and a second one has been submitted for publication. Tang has been working on a third project which has been funded by a grant from Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Miles has published his research in 29 academic journal articles, given 21 presentations at scientific meetings, and participated in a dozen research seminars. He previously received three grants from the American Chemical Society and one from the National Science Foundation – for which he served as co-principal investigator with other Lafayette professors – that provided equipment for undergraduate laboratories. The Organic Division of the American Chemical Society honored him with a travel award and he is a past recipient of the Marquis Distinguished Teaching Award.
He has served as a reviewer for Journal of the American Chemical Society, Organometallics, and several other journals since 1986. He has been a member of the Sigma Xi honor society for scientific and engineering research since 1994. He also belongs to the American Chemical Society and Council on Undergraduate Research. He was a member of the program committee and chairman of the Organic Division for the 24th Middle Atlantic Regional ACS Meeting.
Miles has been faculty adviser to Lafayette’s student chapter of the American Chemical Society since 1996. He earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a B. S. with distinction in chemistry from University of Delaware.