 |
  |
 |
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About Catalina Achim
email: achim@cmu.edu Catalina Achim is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry. She grew up in Măcin, Romania, a city of ten thousand people on the board of the river Danube, about two hundred miles away from the Black Sea. The two thousand-year old Roman ruins of the city Arrubium can still be seen at the outskirts of Macin. Her parents, both middle school teachers, passed on to her the teaching genes, and both reluctantly and happily, let her follow up her pursuit of Chemistry wherever it took her. She holds a B.S./ M.S. from the Polytechnical Institute of Bucharest, Romania, and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Melon University, both in Chemistry. In 2001 she was hired back by her alma mater to serve as Professor in the Chemistry Department at Carnegie Mellon. Her research interests lie in the way in which metal ions can change the course of nanotechnology for the better when used discerningly and rationally. In science jargon, graduate and undergraduate students in her lab identify ways in which transition metal ions can be placed in tens of nanometer structures based on nucleic acids to confer special electronic and magnetic properties to these structures. In 2007, she founded DNAZone, the STEM outreach program of the Center of Nucleic Acids Science and Technology, with the goal of lowering the barriers to educational outreach for the researchers in the Center and to doing science experiments for K-12 students. DNAZone volunteers work yearly with tens of teachers to sow the seeds of interest in science hundreds of students in the Pittsburgh area. The generosity and the passion for education outreach of the CNAST students and faculty, the interest and excitement for science triggered by hands-on experiments in the K-12 students, and the dedication of science teachers and education administrators in schools in Allegheny County and at CMU have made the work in DNAZone easy and rewarding. To paraphrase Andrew Carnegie’s core statement “My heart is in my work.”, “DNAZone’s educational work is at the outreach program’s heart.” Publications |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years | Award |
|---|---|
| 2017 | The Mark Gelfand Service Award for Educational Outreach, Carnegie Mellon University |
| 2015-2016 | ELATE at Drexel® Fellow |
| 2010 | Julius Askhin Teaching Award, Mellon College of Science, Carnegie Mellon University |
| 2006 | Sloan Research Fellowship |
| 2004 | NSF-CAREER Award |
| 2004 | "ACS PROGRESS/Dreyfus Lectureship" award |
| 2003 | Camille-Dryfus Teacher-Scholar Award |
| 2001 | NIH National Research Service Award |
| 1997 | Graduate Student Award of the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh for characterization of novel iron- oxo proteins using Mössbauer spectroscopy |
| 1987-1989 | National Merit Scholarship, Romania |
| 1985 | 2nd Prize in the National Competition for Undergraduates in Analytical Chemistry, Romania |
Affiliations
Member of the American Chemical Society
Member of the Society for Biological Inorganic Chemistry
Education
BS, 1988, University of Bucharest, Romania
MS, 1989, University of Bucharest, Romania
PhD, 1998, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Postdoctoral fellow, 1999–2001, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Professional Experience
| Years | Position or Degree |
|---|---|
| 2012–present | Professor of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University |
| 2017–present | Expert, Division of Chemistry, National Science Foundation |
| 2013–2014 | Program Director, Division of Chemistry, National Science Foundation |
| 2007–2012 | Associate Professor of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University |
| 2009–present | Associate Director, Center for Nucleic Acids Science and Technology, Carnegie Mellon University |
| 2005–2008 | Research Associate in the Section of Minerals, Carnegie Museum of Natural History |
| 2001–2007 | Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University |
| 1999–2001 | Postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Richard H. Holm Harvard University, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology Synthesis and characterization of mixed-valence complexes Solid-phase synthesis of peptides for Fe-S cluster incorporation |
| 1993–1998 | Graduate student with Prof. Eckard Münck Department of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University Characterization of novel iron-oxo proteins Studies of [2Fe-2S] clusters from wild-type and mutants of C. pasteurianum Theoretical studies of the relation between intra- and intermolecular electron-transfer properties of mixed-valent clusters with Dr. Emile Bominaar. |
| 1991–1993 | Research assistant, laboratory of Prof. M. Brezeanu University of Bucharest, Department of Chemistry Synthesis and characterization of platinum complexes with potential biological activity |
| 1989–1991 | Chemist, Air Pollution Research Laboratory, Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, Bucharest, Romania
Developed methods for analysis of trace elements |
Research Projects
• Supramolecular Assemblies Containing Transition Metal Ions
• Magneto-electronics of Transition-metal Clusters
About Catalina Achim
Department of Chemistry Center For Nucleic Acids Science And Technology
