My time in the IUPUI chemistry department changed the course of my career, for sure!
By: Carol Parish
I transferred in as a sophomore-level undergraduate and was almost immediately offered a research position in Kenny Lipkowitz’s lab performing a computational analysis of chiral stationary phases. The opportunity to support myself by doing research helped me to become a much more serious and goal-oriented student. I thrived in the social milieu available in the department – the department felt like a home away from home. This was my first introduction to student-centered, high quality teaching and outcome-oriented research. I was hooked! After graduating with a B.S. in Chemistry, I stayed for a course-based Master’s degree and tried my hand at polymer synthesis with Marty Zeldin and Will Fife. Deciding that my talents lied more on the theoretical and computational side of chemistry, I completed a Ph.D. in electronic structure theory with Cliff Dykstra. It was in the IUPUI chemistry department where I learned to work hard, manage time, and write well – all critically important skills for a future chemist!
After completing my doctorate, I worked with Clark Still at Columbia as a post-doctoral fellow performing free energy simulations and porting the MacroModel software to the Fujitsu supercomputer. While at Columbia, I also started two tech companies – SciLutions and Synchronicity. SciLutions marketed and sold MacroModel while Synchronicity developed and sold SynLib – an early “smart” reactions database software. I enjoyed having my own business; but eventually realized it was not the best career choice for me – I felt like every second I wasn’t working I was losing money! Most importantly, I also missed fundamental research.
As I contemplated my next steps, I realized that I couldn’t envision a career without research. I also wanted to give back; to mentor young people the way I was mentored in the IUPUI Chemistry department. My desire to dovetail teaching and research in meaningful ways caused me to choose a career as a computational physical chemist at predominately undergraduate institutions; first at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and most recently at the University of Richmond where I am currently a Professor of Chemistry.
My teaching experiences range from introductory chemistry, to the 300-level Physical Chemistry sequence, to upper level courses in my area of research. I have also taught a First Year Seminar and co-developed a peer-mentored Science Writing Colleagues program. I am a passionate advocate for equity and inclusion in STEM; at UR I have co-developed highly-successful interdisciplinary introductory courses aimed at recruiting and retaining all students in STEM, especially from non-majority backgrounds. The program began in 2014 and we are seeing very positive impacts. For example, we currently have a 93% retention of underrepresented minority students (URMs) from the first to second year STEM courses; and, our percentage of first generation and underrepresented minorities graduating with a STEM major has increased from 15% to over 65%.
My research interests are varied. My lab applies the tools of quantum mechanics, free energy simulation, molecular dynamics and conformational searching to interesting problems in organic, medicinal, materials and biological chemistry. The physical nature of our work is diverse; however, the unifying theme is our methodological, molecular approach. My lab has published 38 papers in the last 17 years and I have mentored more than 100 undergraduate students, 21 post-baccalaureate fellows, 10 post-doctoral fellows and 14 high school students. These young scientists have been responsible for 278 research presentations at regional, national and international scientific meetings. To support these projects, I have raised more than $3M from NSF, DOE, Dreyfus, ACS-PRF and the Jeffress Foundation. I continue to benefit from kind mentors; in 2003, I spent a sabbatical year in Roald Hoffmann’s lab at Cornell University. In 2012, I received a Fulbright Fellowship to spend a semester at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem working with Sason Shaik.
My research with students has been recognized by receipt of the 2019 American Chemical Society Award for Research at an Undergraduate Institution, the 2018 State Council of Higher Education for Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award, the 2017 University of Richmond Distinguished Educator award, the 2016 Council on Undergraduate Research, Goldwater Mentor award, the American Chemical Society Committee on Minority Affairs Zaida C. Morales-Martinez Prize for Outstanding Mentoring of ACS Scholars, the 2011 Stanley C. Israel Regional ACS Award for Advancing Diversity in the Chemical Sciences and the 2005 Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar award. I was elected as a Fellow of the American Chemical Society in 2015. I co-founded the MERCURY undergraduate supercomputer consortium and have raised an additional $1M+ to support those endeavors. Physical and computational chemistry continues to be a traditionally male-oriented area. I have worked hard to help change that culture and I have a long history of encouraging the full participation of women as well as students from groups typically underrepresented in chemistry.
Eighty-seven of my research students have graduated and 45 went on to pursue the Ph.D. in the chemical sciences; some in theoretical groups; some in synthetic or experimental groups. Twenty-two of my students have gone on to professional schools and 25 of my research alums are employed in the chemical or pharmaceutical industries. In the last 18 years my students have received 12 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships, 6 ACS Scholar awards, 2 Gates-Millennium Scholarships as well as an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, a DAAD-RISE scholarship for study in Germany, a DOD Graduate Fellowship, an NIH pre-doctoral fellowship, a Rhodes Scholarship for study at Oxford and a Gates Scholarships for study at Cambridge.