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A.B. Grinnell College, 1964 Ph.D. Michigan State University, 1968 Wickenden Professor of Chemistry on the Denison faculty since 1968. Pictured at a PC cluster near the General Chemistry Laboratories with Phil Waite, building supervisor and chemical hygiene officer |
| Thomas A. Evans Professor Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Ebaugh Laboratories Denison University Granville, OH 43023 |
Office: 108 Ebaugh Laboratories Phone: 740-587-6496 FAX: 740-587-6673 email: evans@denison.edu |
Courses taught: general chemistry, organic chemistry-introductory (fall lecture and lab, spring lecture and lab), advanced (lecture and lab)
Course development interests: laboratory experiments that support the early and realistic application of important tools for solving chemical problems: spectroscopy, molecular modeling and other computer applications and information technology. Examples include popcorn in general chemistry and independent projects in organic chemistry.
Research interests: (1) acid-catalyzed ring opening reactions of cyclopropane and cyclobutane terpenoids (organic synthesis, NMR, GC, HPLC, and GC/MS) and (2) phenolic porphyrins, their redox and catalytic behavior (organic synthesis, UV-vis, HPLC, NMR, cyclic voltammetry.)
Several years ago we were busy with fullerenes in a 5 year collaboration with Dr. Paula Melaragno and thirteen students. Dr. Melaragno, a spectroelectrochemist, resigned her position at Denison in 1998 to spend more time with her family. A picture of Paula observing a superconducting magnet can be found elsewhere on the department's website. We started by building our own apparatus for generating C60 enriched soot but eventually were able to buy "pure" Buckyball. C60 stilll gets a lot of attention in class. We have fun with a template for making a paper model of C60.
Beyond the lab and classroom: My wife Laura and sons Eric and John are shown here fooling around with balloons in a picture taken several years ago. Sharing in their lives and the lives of Denison students and alumni has been a special privilege. John oined the 1979 alumni for a picture at the annual spring picnic. Laura has completed a project for the Granville Historical Society developing a computer database index of the Granville Times , a newspaper published in Granville from 1880-1941. The database can be accessed from the GHS website. Laura also writes a weekly column based on people and places in the news of long ago. Emeritus Professor William Hoffman and I are part of a handball group that plays three times a week. Often in the evening I'm playing my trombone. Either practicing or playing in groups like the Heisey Wind Ensemble.
A more recent picture shows Eric (left) and John at a beech tree in Denison's Biological Reserve that we have used to mark their growth through the years. The tree has since blown down, a victim of a wind storm and there have been many changes for the boys as well. Eric established our first department Web site in 1995, was Webmaster for the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard while getting his masters degree in history there, and worked for three years in the Academic Computing group here at Denison with particular responsibilities for the student network, Denison On-Line (DOL). Both Eric and John are graduates of the University of Michigan School of Law starting careers in intellectual property law, Eric in Palo Alto and John in Clevelend. John earned a Ph.D in biophysics determining protein structure using x-ray crystallography at the University of Michigan before starting law school. Neither son is particularly sympathetic to the Michigan State loyalties of their parents.
Recent adviser to the following groups:
Denison students interested in the Oak Ridge Science Semester, an opportunity to work fulltime in a research laboratory at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Denison Ultimate Frisbee Club. The club participates in tournaments organized by theUltimate Frisbee Association.
Presbyterians at Denison (PaD). Denison students meet on campus and at the First Presbyterian Church in Granville for a variety of activities.
Here are the websites of some churches with which I am familiar for one reason or another. It's always inspiring to "visit." Ann Arbor, New York City's Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, the Solana Beach Presbyterian Church in Caliornia and Chicago's Fourth Presbyterian Church. This church is served by The Rev. John Buchanan, father of Denison graduate (physics) Susan Buchanan, who recently earned a Masters in Public Health and is developing a career related to environmental health issues after several years practicing medicine at the Erie Community Health Clinic, a not-for-profit health care facility which provides medical services to a mostly Hispanic community on the near westside of Chicago.