Departmental Newsletter
Colloquium Schedule
Spring 2026 Chemistry and Biochemistry Colloquium Series
The Chemistry and Biochemistry Colloquia Series is presented Wednesday afternoons at 3:30 p.m. in McKinley 224 unless otherwise noted.
| Date | Seminar Speaker, Title |
|---|---|
| 01/28 |
Prof. Bret Freudenthal (University of Kansas Medical Center), DNA Repair Search and Recognition Mechanisms |
| 02/04 |
Prof. Nicholas Riley (University of Washington), Analytical and Informatic Tools to Explore the Glycoproteome |
|
02/11 |
Prof. Garry Grubbs II (Missouri University of Science and Technology), Microwave Spectroscopy at Missouri S&T: New Tools for New Horizons in Rotational Spectroscopy |
|
02/18 |
Prof. Christopher Solis (Florida State University), Mechanisms of (Dis)assembly of Cardiac Muscle Sarcomeres: Zooming into the Z-Disc Proteins |
|
02/25 |
Dr. Cheng Li (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Neutron Scattering for Chemistry, Materials, Science, and Biology |
|
03/04 |
Prof. Haifan Wu (Wichita State University), Multifunctional Boronic Acid-Containing Cross-Linkers and the Application to Probe ApoE/TREM2 Interaction |
| 03/11 |
Prof. Yusuke Okuno (Washington University in St. Louis), TBA |
| 03/18 |
SPRING BREAK - NO COLLOQUIUM |
| 03/25 |
Prof. David Miller (Oklahoma State University), Biocatalytic Oxa-Pictet-Spengler Reactions |
| 04/01 |
Prof. Adam Smith (Texas Tech Univeristy), Lipids as Co-Solvents: Spectroscopic Approaches for Lipid-Protein Interactions |
| 04/08 |
Prof. Lejla Zubcevic (University of Kansas Medical Center), Uncovering Molecular Mechanisms of Proteins Implicated in the Mg2+ Homeostasis |
| 04/15 |
Prof. Jane Wissinger (University of Minnesota), TBA |
| 04/22 |
CHEM 700 Presentations |
| 04/29 |
CHEM 700 Presentations (cont.) |
| 05/06 |
Undergraduate Award Ceremony |
Watkins Visiting Lecturers
The Watkins Visiting Professorship was created in 1974 by a grant from the Watkins Foundation. E. A. Watkins was vice president of Union National Bank, Wichita, in 1936 when he acquired a small iron foundry and wholesale hardware firm that he built into Watkins, Inc., a major steel fabrication and industrial supply company.
Watkins’ son, E. Leon Watkins, a 1936 WSU alumnus, succeeded his father as president of the firm. After Leon Watkins’ death in 1971, his widow, Roberta, also a WSU alumna, announced that the Watkins’ Foundation Board of Trustees had determined that “the sole project of the foundation shall be the support of the Watkins Visiting Professorship at Wichita State University.” The departments of Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Geology and Physics share the professorship.