Planning: PREC: Exploring a Partnership between Historically Black Universities in the District of Columbia and NSF's ChemMatCARS in Alignment with the NSF PREC Program

In this planning grant, funded by the Chemistry Division at NSF, Professors Timothy R. Ramadhar, Raymond J. Butcher, and Steven P.

Cummings of Howard University will work with the NSF's ChemMatCARS facility to develop a partnership that could form the basis of a future submission to the Partnerships for Research and Education in Chemistry (PREC) Program. The inclusion of the University of the District of Columbia within this partnership through the participation of Professor Xueqing Song will also be explored.

Both Howard University and the University of the District of Columbia are Historically Black Universities (HBCU) located in Washington, D.C. Howard University is a private doctoral research institution and the University of the District of Columbia is a public land-grant Master’s institution. This planning grant will provide an opportunity to discuss how high-energy high-brilliance synchrotron X-rays provided by NSF’s ChemMatCARS in the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) can benefit regional materials and medicinal chemistry research programs.

It will also foster a discussion as to how a partnership with NSF’s ChemMatCARS can be leveraged to increase the enrollment of Black students into undergraduate and graduate chemistry programs. This planning grant will support both virtual planning meetings and on-site planning meetings held at Howard University and NSF’s ChemMatCARS to discuss strategies to formulate a strong partnership that would be meritorious of PREC funding.

These meetings will also provide crystallographic educational opportunities, especially for student attendees. This grant will lead to plans to strengthen research programs, increase underrepresented minority participation in STEM, and imbue trainees with advanced chemical and crystallographic skills that will make them more competitive in applying for academic, industrial, and federal jobs.

These activities will promote the progress of science and advance national prosperity and welfare, particularly through further diversification of the national workforce.

This PREC planning grant will enable discussions on how synchrotron X-rays at NSF’s ChemMatCARS can benefit research programs involving: (1) the design and microcrystallographic study of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) for the ‘crystalline sponge method’, (2) structural studies of spin-crossover (SC) systems involving octahedral complexes of d4–d7 metals of the first transition series, (3) the development of carborane ligands for dinuclear catalysis, (4) probing the encapsulation of noble metal nanoparticles in support structures such as MOFs and aerogels, and (5) microcrystallographic studies of triorganotin complexes as a novel class of cysteine protease inhibitors. Outreach to other faculty will be performed to identify additional research projects that could benefit from synchrotron radiation.

A major discussion point will be how new resources arising from the installation of a second beamline using a canted undulator at NSF’s ChemMatCARS (NSF CHE-1836674) during the current Advanced Photon Source Upgrade (APS-U) will benefit the aforementioned research programs. The virtual planning meetings and on-site planning meetings at Howard University and NSF’s ChemMatCARS will also provide a forum to discuss how the partnership will increase recruitment in undergraduate and graduate chemistry programs, and how it will help to train the next generation of crystallographers and further diversify the field.

The meetings will also include scientific lectures and crystallographic training that will be beneficial for attendees. Part of these training activities will utilize a single-crystal X-ray diffractometer (SC-XRD) and a powder benchtop X-ray diffractometer (PXRD) recently obtained by PI Ramadhar and co-PIs Butcher and Cummings (NSF DMR-2117502). Beamline leadership and staff, the PI and co-PIs, faculty, and both undergraduate and graduate students will be involved in the planning meetings.

Incorporation of student participants in these meetings is crucial to establish a partnership that is relevant and inclusive. These planning meetings will also provide an opportunity to develop evaluation metrics for the planned PREC partnership to determine the effectiveness of engaging students in chemistry and establish whether the collaborative effort is increasing recruitment in undergraduate and graduate chemistry programs.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.