New Chemistry Faculty

Since the last newsletter, UST Chemistry has hired two new faculty members, filling needs in chemical education and organic chemistry.

We are joined this fall by Mithra Marcus, a new colleague whose emphasis is in chemical education.  Mithra joins the UST Chemistry Department as Clinical Professor.  She will work in the general chemistry curriculum, and we are excited to have her bring fresh teaching skills and outreach experience to the department.

Mithra received her B.S. in chemistry from North Carolina State University in 2001 and her Ph. D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2006.  She spent a year working at the Science Museum of Minnesota as a School Project Specialist before joining us in 2008.

Mithra lives with her husband Matthew (a physicist).   In addition to science and outreach, she enjoys baking, particularly cookies.  Her colleagues look forward to  enjoying the products of that talent.

Our faculty search for a new organic chemist resulted in the hire of longtime staff member Bill Ojala. Bill joined the Chemistry Department of the University of St. Thomas in September of 1995 as a member of the staff with responsibilities in the area of laboratory teaching and development.  He has taught organic chemistry in the Department since the fall semester of 1997, and he conducts a research program in solid-state organic chemistry with his undergraduate students.  Recent projects include the determination of the solid-state structures of isomeric benzylideneanilines and phenylhydrazones and the determination of the structures of crystalline monosaccharide derivatives.

Bill was born in Grand Forks, North Dakota and grew up in Great Falls, Montana, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree (chemistry and mathematics double major) from the College of Great Falls (now the University of Great Falls) in 1977.  Later that year he arrived in the Twin Cities to attend graduate school at the University of Minnesota, where he earned a Ph.D. in chemistry, specializing in solid-state organic chemistry and X-ray crystallography.  Before coming to UST, Bill held temporary teaching positions in several local colleges and completed a three-year appointment as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota.

In addition to chemistry, Bill enjoys history, especially the history of the American West.  His office door is adorned with photos of his beloved Montana, and he has entertained colleagues and students alike with (sometimes) historical tales.

Bill has authored over 40 peer-reviewed articles, most in the area of x-ray crystallography, and the ACS Petroleum Research Fund has funded his research.  We are pleased that he will continue his excellent teaching and active research with our undergraduates as a tenure track faculty member.