Courses
DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION STATEMENT
I acknowledge that each of you have diverse backgrounds and preparation for the course. I recognize and value the many perspectives my students bring to the classroom. In fact, I see this situation as an opportunity to bring together different skill sets. Many factors—social identities, visible and invisible disabilities, family circumstances, physical location, mental health, access to the internet—all influence the experiences that every individual can have in my courses this and every semester. I am committed to building an inclusive and diverse environment to support your learning, and I want you to know that every student taking this course has equal chances to succeed. My teaching style effectively engages the students and encourage them to develop into future thinkers, inventors, and researchers, whether it be in industry, academia, or public service.
CHEM 1500 Chemistry for Health Sciences
Chemistry for Health Sciences course will take you on a journey through introductory general, organic, and biological chemistry to help you build fundamental understanding of how molecules are created, why they react, how they interact and what their role in living organisms is. We will focus on oxygen atom by investigating and tracing oxygen (including molecules containing oxygen) in processes that occur in nature and human body.
The journey will take you from small molecules to very large and long molecules such as DNA, RNA, proteins etc. (natural polymers) and plastics (synthetic polymers) and their role in everyday life. Throughout the course you will discover how chemistry principles describing homeostasis, and how disruption of the chemical balance gives a raise to genetic mutations, metabolic disorders and diseases. You will find out how we use chemical principles to develop diagnostic tests and design drugs for the targeted therapies.
CHEM 2410 Organic Chemistry I
Organic chemistry I course will take you on a journey of introductory organic chemistry to help you build fundamental understanding of how molecules are created, why they react and how they interact. You will learn reactions such as substitution, elimination, addition and radical, and you will examine chemical reactivity, forces and mechanisms driving these chemical transformations.
Throughout the course you will discover how basic chemistry principles can predict the direction of the reaction and how to manipulate reaction conditions to arrive at desired synthetic product. You will learn to design multiple step syntheses comprise of simple singular steps to produce organic product (molecules). Finally, you will discover the significance of stereochemistry and how it is used to design biologically active molecules and drugs.
CHEM 2420 Organic Chemistry II
Organic Chemistry II course will continue a journey of exploring more function groups such as alcohols, ethers, amines, and carbonyl group derivatives. You will discover a new set of mechanisms such as electrophilic addition, aromatic electrophilic substitution (AES), as well as pericyclic reaction mechanisms of conjugated systems. You will continue mastering multistep syntheses to achieve the desired product.
And Finally, throughout the course you will learn how to identify the molecular structure of organic compounds using Infra-Red (IR), hydrogen and carbon Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy techniques.
CHEM 4440 Biochemistry for Pre-Health
Biochemistry course will take you on a journey that describes and explains life on the molecular level. Through organic and biological chemistry, you will build fundamental understanding of how biological molecules are assembled, why and how they react and interact in living organisms. The journey will take you from small to very large molecules such as DNA, RNA, proteins, and long-chain sugars, and you will explore the properties and role of these macromolecules in maintaining homeostasis on the cellular level.
You will discover how disruption of the chemical balance gives a raise to genetic mutations, metabolic disorders, and diseases. Finally, you will find out how we use chemical and biochemical principles to develop tools and techniques to sequence and manipulate DNA, investigate forensically crime scenes, analyze gene expression, and regulate enzyme activity etc.
