The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a grant of $259,900 to the University of the South for the acquisition of a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) system, a project under the direction of Rongson Pongdee, Deon Miles, John Shibata, and Rob Bachman, all members of Sewanee’s Chemistry Department.

The grant is the second for Sewanee from the NSF’s Major Research Instrumentation Program in the last two years. The principal investigator for the project is Ron Pongdee (right), in his second year at Sewanee. Pongdee is actively engaged in research (and involving students in that research) supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Each faculty member in the Department of Chemistry maintains an active research program involving undergraduate students of all levels of experience. The versatility of the new NMR instrument to be purchased from this award will have a positive impact on the work of faculty members conducting research in diverse areas including organic and inorganic synthesis, nanotechnology, and biological chemistry.

It will also ensure that students taking chemistry courses have access to cutting-edge instrumentation in the teaching laboratories. NMR spectroscopy plays a central role in the structural determination of organic molecules, so the effect of this instrument will be felt especially in organic chemistry courses, which serve 40-60 students each semester. The capabilities of the new NMR will allow each student access to individualized data as well as the ability to obtain more complex structural information.

Students’ exposure to the latest instrumentation is vital to their preparation as the next generation of scientists. In addition, the pace at which research can be accomplished is becoming increasingly dependent on access to experimental data obtained from various instrumental analyses. Along with other recent equipment acquisitions, this will enhance and strengthen both the research and teaching endeavors within Sewanee’s Chemistry Department.

The university’s renewed emphasis on research grants goes hand in hand with its renewed emphasis on student-faculty collaborative research. In the past decade, Sewanee has developed a strong undergraduate research program, what some have called the most important development in higher education in the past generation.