Saint John's University Alumni

Shaun Sommerer writes:

Subject: Greetings from Florida

Dear Mike,

I received your letter of 1 July 1996 and am glad to hear that all is

going well at SJU. You indicated that you wanted to know what alums were up to so I thought I would e-mail it to you. I am not sure how much detail you want. Iguess I will error on the side of too much (also known as bragging).

Things have gone very well for me since leaving SJU. I certainly would not have achieved what I have thus far in science without the excellent instruction and mentoring that the SJU/CSB Chemistry department afforded me (with most of the credit going to Bob Fulton and yourself). Moreover, my chemistry major as part of a liberal arts education has truly made all the difference in the world for which

I will be eternally grateful. Without the liberal arts component (and chemistry professors who appreciate the importance of a well rounded education) I might have

slipped into becoming a technician.

If there is any additional information you would like I would be happyto forward it to you. Do stay in touch.

Shaun

Education

1987 - 1991 Ph.D. University of Florida, Gainesville,Florida

1986 - 1987 M.S. South Dakota State University, Brookings SD

1980 - 1984 B.S. St. John's University, Collegeville,

Minnesota

Research Experience and Interests:

* Metal-containing polymers: synthetic, structural and theoretical studies employing X-ray crystallography and computational techniques.

* Single crystal X-ray diffraction studies on numerous compounds including organic, inorganic and organometallic species.

* Computational studies of coordination compounds using ZINDO, GAMESS, MM2, CaChe and HyperChem software on both UNIX and PowerMac platforms.

* Computer aided molecular design using GAMESS on Power Mac, RS/6000 and Cray-MP8/864

Meetings and Presentations:

Dr. Sommerer has attended over 15 professional meetings since 1990 including the following:

* International Union of Crystallography Small-molecules Indaba, Skukuza, Kruger National Park, South Africa, August 20-24, 1995. "Computer-Aided Design of Inorganic Materials" (received award for best poster)

* National Science Foundation Environmental Chemistry Workshop, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, Aug. 28 - Sept. 2, 1994.

* Tenth Annual Florida Catalysis Conference, Palm Coast, FL, April 1993. "On the Road to Computer Designed Catalysts".

* 15th Congress and General Assembly of the International Union of Crystallography, Bordeaux, France, July 1990. "Pentagonal-Bipyramidal Complexes of Cr(III) Involving Planar Pentadentate Ligands".

Publications

Dr. Sommerer has 22 publications since 1990 and one book chaper (invited). The most recent papers are listed below:

20. Computer Aided Design of Metallopharmaceuticals: A Molecular Mechanics Force Field for Gadolinium Complexes, Thomas R. Cundari, Eddie Moody and Shaun O. Sommerer, Inorganic Chemistry, 1995, 34, 5989-5999.

21. The Crystal and Molecular Structure of [2,2'-N,N'-O-Bipyridyl Ketone Hydrate, N,N-Bipyridylketone Oxime, Nitrito Cobalt (III)], William P. Jensen, Abdul I. Hamza, Il-Hwan Suh, Robert A. Jacobson and Shaun O. Sommerer. Accepted for publication in Inorganica Chimica Acta, November 9, 1995.

22. The Structure of catena-Poly[(mu2-O,mu-N'(di-2-pyridylketone)-N,O)\mu-O,mu- N(di-2-pyridyl ketone)-N',O]silver(I) tetrafluoroborate, Shaun O. Sommerer, Barry L. Westcott, Alan J. Jircitano and Khalil A. Abboud, Acta Crystallographica, Section C., 1996, C52, 1426-1428.

Book Chapter

1. Effective Core Potential Approaches to the Chemistry of the Heavier

Elements, Thomas R. Cundari, Michael T. Benson, M. Leigh Lutz and Shaun O.Sommerer, in Reviews in Computational Chemistry, Volume 8, Chapter 3, p. 145 - 202, 1996. K. B. Lipkowitz and D. B. Boyd Eds. VCH Publishers Inc.

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Michael R. Ross
Chemistry Department, College of St.Benedict/St. John's University
St. Joseph, MN 56374
320-363-5482

Comments to author: mross@csbsju.edu