Have you had some questions/concerns about how successful you can be as a woman chemist?  Are there some special concerns that women chemists have that their male counterparts don't have to think about?  We have assembled a panel of distinguished women chemists to answer questions on their careers as chemists.  The women who will be part of this discussion are Alanah Fitch (Loyola), Gretchen Shearer (McCrone) and Marion Thurnauer (Argonne).  A brief biographical sketch of each woman is provided below.

The panel discussion will be from 5:00PM - 6:00 PM, but there will be time for discussion with the panelists before the dinner at 7:00 PM.

Alanah Fitch received a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology/Latin American Studies in 1975 from Antioch College, Ohio, a M.S. in Soil Fertility in 1977 from the University of Arizona to Soil Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Soil Chemistry from the University of Illinois Champaign Urbana in 1981.  Her chemistry experiences inspired her into a career in chemistry starting with postdoctorals in Electrochemistry, 1981-1984 U.W. Madison (Dennis Evans) and 1984 Northwestern University (Don Smith and Rick Van Duyne). In 1985 she joined the faculty at Loyola, becoming a full professor in 1995.  Her research focus (60 publications to date, EPA and NSF funded) uses clay-modified electrodes to study transport phenomena in thin clay films. This work has applications in natural phenomena, remediation of polluted environments, support matrices for sensors, and microelectronics. Dr. Fitch was named Loyola University Faculty scholar in 2000. In 2004 Dr.Fitch was awarded an NSF Discovery Corps fellowship to bring Loyola's GC-MS online for use in joint teaching and research with institutions in East Africa.  Dr. Fitch has served as a local officer for the Electrochemical Society, a national board member for the Clay Minerals, and is currently a councilor for the Analytical Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society.

Gretchen L. Shearer received a B.A. in Chemistry from the College of Wooster (Ohio) and a Ph.D. in archaeology from the University of London.  Her doctoral research topic was the application of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy to art and archeological samples.  She was an L.W. Frohlich Research Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where she studied reactions of alkoxysilane based stone consolidants.  After further postdoctoral appointments at the University of Iowa and the University of Chicago, she joined McCrone Associates in 1995.  She is a Senior Research Chemist and is responsible for performing chemical analysis using infrared spectroscopy, Raman microspectroscopy, gas and liquid chromatography, polarized light microscopy and microchemical techniques.   She has problem solving experience in a wide variety of industries including pharmaceutical, paints and coatings, electronics, forensics, polymers and metals.  She has been particularly interested in the identification of foreign matter in pharmaceutical products, evaluation of surface defects and adhesion failures in coatings and the application of spectroscopic techniques to the study of art and archaeological samples.  In addition to her consulting work, she is an instructor for the McCrone College of Microscopy and is a contributor to the McCrone's on-line Atlas of Small Particles which is due to be released in April 2005.

Marion C. Thurnauer received a Ph.D. (1974) in Chemistry from the University of Chicago.  She has served as Group Leader of the Photosynthesis Research Group, Director of the Chemistry Division, and Argonne Women in Science Program Initiator.   Her research involves studies of sequential electron transfer in natural photosynthetic systems of photosynthetic bacteria and green plants and model photosynthetic systems.  Recently she has been interested in applying epr to study these processes in surface modified nanocrystalline metal oxide colloids to mimic the energy transduction of natural photosynthesis.  She was awarded the 2002 Francis P. Garvan-John M. Olin Medal by the American Chemical Society.  Other honors include: the University of Chicago Award for Distinguished Performance at Argonne in 1991; the Agnes Fay Morgan Research Award in 1987; elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1998; the Argonne Director's Award in 1990 for extraordinary effort in organizing the Science Careers in Search of Women Conference.  Her professional activities include: Member, Editorial Board of Biophysical Journal (2000-2003); Member and Vice Chair, National Research Council and Chemical Sciences Roundtable (1998-2001). She was instrumental in initiating the Annual Science Career Conference for young women and was one of the founders of the Women in Science and Technology Program at Argonne National Laboratory.  She has served on several role model panels for Women in Science.        

Updated 3/10/05