American Chemical Society award!

The Chemistry & Biochemistry Club at CSUN was chartered on December 17, 1968. The leadership has changed hands many times since that date.

Dr. Kayla A. Kaiser became the advisor in Summer 2013 and aimed to reinstate the club as a Student Chapter of the American Chemical Society (ACS), but first we had to regain university standing here at CSUN.

That first year 2013-14, we did 4 outreach events and held 2 social events.

Our constitution was updated Oct. 19, 2013 by Christine Dimirjian, at the time she was serving as graduate student senator of the CSUN Associated Students (AS). Christine is now a Ph.D. Candidate at University of California, Davis.

The second year 2014-15, we did 1 professional development program, 3 outreach events, and 2 social events.

Our constitution was accepted by the Matador Involvement Center (MIC) on March 9, 2015 thanks to Kimberly Madhwani, who had experience serving as a senator for CSUN AS. Kimberly is now a PhD student at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

We grew our membership as a club in good standing with the university, participating in Meet the Clubs for the first time under my direction. The third year 2015-16, we did 5 outreach events and 1 social event.

We started using social media, including twitter and facebook, in addition to keeping a Moodle page to keep our growing membership informed of upcoming events. Before switching to Canvas, our Moodle page had 327 enrolled users.

Ravinder Abrol was added as a co-advisor in August 2016. He brought fresh enthusiasm for mentoring students to pursue careers in chemistry. Ravi and Kayla both share experiences having been members of an ACS student chapter as undergraduates, and we both agreed that being a part of an active ACS student chapter was a formative experience for us.

In 2016-17, our club received two honors at the MIC Clubs & Organizations Awards Ceremony. That year, we did 4 outreach events. Our club organized a STEM mixer for 18 science-related clubs. We held 4 professional development events. We hosted 2 social events. We got club t-shirts.

The first award was for Creative Marketing, for our use of the hashtag #MemeMonday and for sharing chemistry-related images on Instagram and our other social media platforms. The second award was for Outstanding Organization. That year’s success was a result of leadership from Angela Cannata who is currently a MARC U*STAR Scholar here at CSUN.

On January 23, 2017 our club was reactivated as an ACS student chapter. For reporting on our activities for that date forward to the end of the spring 2017 semester, we were awarded an Honorable Mention award. CSUN’s chapter will be honored at the 255th ACS National Meeting in New Orleans, LA.

Our current president, Fiorella Betdashtoo is doing a fantastic job so far this year. We’ve done our annual Fall hands-on chemistry program at the Valley Academy of Arts & Sciences (outreach), the club has hosted a research panel (professional development) and we’ve just had our end-of-year potluck (social event) and pizza party (fundraiser).

I wish I could mention every single one of our dedicated student members, they are the true stars of this story!

Chem Club Hosts First Q&A Session For Department Seminar Speaker At CSUN

Over the last year, we (the CSUN Chem Club) have been working hard to become an established club representing the chemistry students at CSUN.  Our efforts have been multi-faceted through different avenues.  Recently, we held a 'research panel' discussion which was popular and will be written about in the near future.  We were excited to host our first 'Question & Answer' session with incoming (outside) research faculty members to learn more about them.  Our first speaker was Dr Jevgenij Raskatov from the University of California at Santa Cruz.  Below is a brief description of the wonderful discussion.



Dr. Raskatov was asked a couple of great questions.  One of which was to briefly layout the timeline of his journey in chemistry starting with his undergraduate adventure up through his faculty position.  Originally, Dr. Raskatov wanted to pursue a profession in music in Heidelberg (Germany).  He is a native of Moscow, Russia.  Upon arrival in Heidelberg, he discovered the difficulty with pursuing a professional career in as a musician.  This led him to try to discover what other topic of study he might be interested in by enrolling into the University of Heidelberg.



Originally, he started out as a 'biology major'.  Over time and under the influence of a few mentors, he discovered that he was more comfortable with the molecular description of biological processes. Therefore, he chose to study molecular biology and found computational chemistry to be the instrument of choice by which to pursue a career in chemistry.


His current research focuses on the study of "aggregation prone (amyloidegenic) polypeptides" which play a pivotal role in certain neurological disorders, namely, Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease. He considers his field to be CHEMICAL NEUROSCIENCE. His early work in computational chemistry provided him with the understanding of chirality which led to his recent studies of enantiopure D- or L- or racemic Aβ42.

Thanks to Dr. Raskatov for spending time with undergraduates here at CSUN!

Friday, December 1, 2017