Prof. Nate DeYonker (he/him) @ University of Memphis Department of Chemistry. My words and thoughts. Always looking for new team members! synth/cat enthusiast
I'm tenured in the Dept of Chemistry at an R1-classified university. I didn't win a single award for my research or scholarship until my 3rd year as postdoc. Believe in yourself, find mentors and colleagues who believe in you, balance work/life but work your ass off when you can
Reminder that you can do awesome stuff and be an amazing scientist without the NSF GRFP!
But also congratulations to all who received one. Including my cousin here
@ucmerced
:)
I had no papers, not even any in preparation, and a mediocre GPA when I applied to grad school. Don't let tweets like this scare you. Come to
@memphis_chem
and learn you can become a rock star at any stage of your life.
My jaws keep dropping as I go through 70 PhD applicant files. People w/ 2 coauthored papers & an interesting solo writing sample don’t even make it to the top 10 in my pile.
The level of knowledge, research experience & passion these kids bring to the table is just remarkable! 🤩
@equalityAlec
Copy and paste this thread into a document, format according to MIT Press requirements, submit as a Letter to the Editor or Letter of Concern? Anywho, damage is done when the right breathlessly cites these anti-quantitative efforts for the next 10 years.
Hi all! No official job posting yet, but looking for an NSF-funded postdoc to start ASAP in Jan 2024. Anyone with biochemical modeling (MD, QM, QM/MM) experience is encouraged to contact me. A lot of graduations/turnover expected in the lab next year, so I need some help!
The group rocked their posters last night at
#ACSSpring2024
so glad for the opportunity from
#NSF
and
@memphis_chem
to bring all my grad students to a national meeting for the first time (since when my group was tiny)
@newmanian2
@AHammoudMI
@WSJ
Are Jews allowed in Dearborn? It's a free country and most adults in Michigan have a car. There's great restaurants and book/comic/record stores in Dearborn. There are no Muslim-controlled roadblocks or checkpoints through Dearborn on the way to DTW airport. Weirdo.
Postdoc job posting is live! Consider joining my group at University of Memphis if yr interested in cheminformatics analysis of MD simulations, QM-cluster models of enzymes, or quantitative protein-ligand interaction energy calculations
Was having an incredibly bad and frustrating week of work, but I just received notification that a manuscript was accepted as-is (first time since I was a postdoc). The only needed correction was that the Editor wanted us to shorten the title.
Dr.
@dawappett
arrived to tour the lab and campus and plan some science. Dr. Agbaglo successfully defended his dissertation and became the second PhD from my research group. A huge happy day!!!
Atsu Agbaglo is my second grad student to defend his research prospectus. He's two forms away from being ABD! TJ follows in two weeks then group party time. Very proud of the hard work Atsu has done
@memphis_chem
A team from UNR Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, with scientists at Argonne and Pacific Northwest National Labs, has resolved the structures of lanthanide-ligand complexes, in solution, with AIMD and EXAFS. Check it out:
@unrchemicaleng
@ryleywalker
The Denton, TX Broadcast / Atlas Sound gig got cancelled because Trish had been sick. I was planning to propose to my now-wife on the drive to the show from Tennessee. So I had to make up some goofy-ass excuse to get her to drive to Texas anyway and ask her to marry me
New paper in
@JChemPhys
!
A brief comment/suggestion from
@cd_sherrill
over Zoom two years ago has turned into a really exciting direction in the lab, and this is our first contribution.
@joe_r_Odonnell
@RebeccaBuxton
Did they start dating while she was his student? Or did they start dating later after she graduated? It's a colossal difference
The three best pieces of advice I've received in academia:
1) don't hold grudges
2) invite yourself to or ask for invitations to things
3) steer clear of abusers
Bonus advice that I struggle to ever follow: don't take setbacks so personally
New paper out today, it's very cool to be a part of the Electronic Structure special issue "Using Electronic Structure Calculations to Understand Biological Systems" curated by
@KulikGroup
,
@Lab_initio
, and Marc van der Kamp.
A wonderful time finally. Finally! Getting my group to the Mid-South Biophysics Symposium. Big representation from
@memphis_chem
!
#MSBS23
Thanks for the invite
@OleMiss_MBELab
Very proud of two of the newest undergrads in the group, Khawlah Almurisi and Zaid Hadidi, for presenting their MD/F-SAPT research at the UM Works in Progress symposium. Khawlah especially crushed it since she started her project only ~8 weeks ago!
@uofmemphis
@memphis_chem
I have my students make a 2-3 minute video at the beginning of every semester to help me learn their names, see how they're feeling about the course, and get to know them a bit. This semester I added that I wanted them to show me their pets. GOOD DECISION!
I am so glad that several of my chemistry heroes have finally published this. I hope that my chemistry heroes who have found themselves on the opposite side of the debate will soften their hearts. Let's focus on the true and relentless enemies to academic freedom and free speech
What do we value as a community? I’ve joined John Herbert, Martin Head-Gordon, Teresa Head-Gordon, Rommie Amaro, Alán Aspuru-Guzik, Roald Hoffmann, Carol Parish, Christina Payne, & Troy Van Voorhis in
@JPhysChem
Letters to share our view.
#compchem
|
The pupil has become the master!
My Research Scientist, Dr. Qianyi Cheng, just got an NIH R35 proposal funded and she will be looking for 2 postdocs (along with the postdoc position available in my group!) It's an amazing time to join the University of Memphis Dept of Chemistry!
@tilliander
no way, I've never met anyone in an aphex twin tshirt that I didnt like. But I met a lot of drunk shrivs at a recent New Order show wearing Unknown Pleasures tees and I wish my memory of them can be deleted
Kicked off
#ACSFall2022
by... ditching the conference for a few hours and checking out the glorious Cezanne exhibit at the Art Institute with my mom and stepdad!
My postdoc search part deux is live! Great pay, low cost of living in Memphis, great team! Translatable skills in electronic structure theory, biomodeling, computational enzymology and data science! NSF support for 24-30 months.
I greatly enjoyed
#ACSSpring2023
. I made new friends at all career stages, presented new work, ate too many French fries, did my Council duties, argued with Lee Woodcock, and am in desperate need of sleep. I love the gauntlet! Didn't take pictures of course... 😪
@RottenInDenmark
The backstory on all this and the rift it made in my little corner of the STEM community is totally bonkers.
Sorry if these are paywalled!
All three excellent postdoc candidates for my NSF CAREER funding have taken other jobs. I have to try again for January. Sigh... any of you have good Dec 2022 graduates looking for a job in biochemical electronic structure? Formal job posting coming in 2-4 weeks hopefully.
New work with Qianyi in
@JPhysChem
looking at QM-cluster models of glycine-N-methyltransferase.
Part of the festschrift for Prof Krishnan Raghavachari, whose work has been a huge inspiration at all levels of my career.
@ohdearz
I don't know you or who you're talking about, but when people talk about "cancel culture", I wish the phrase would get re-purposed to describe the lives/careers/dreams of people who are bounced out of our communities by harassment and abuse before ever getting to take part
Each year for my NSF CAREER funding we've had a virtual steering committee meeting with profs Abby Parrill (Memphis), David Sherrill
@cd_sherrill
(Georgia Tech) and Dr. Bernie Brooks (NIH). These meetings have been so valuable and put much wind in the group's sails.
Some parts of organizing a symposium are super easy and some are like "omg so my fires to put out, is this what being department chair feels like???"
@Dodson_Group
and I made a good team and we had great attendance considering how small our corner of
#astrochemistry
can seem.
She beat me to it! I am so excited for the opportunity to elevate Domi's career, and to welcome her to the strong (now stronger) biochem and comp chem communities in the southeast US
Now that my visa has been approved it’s time to announce that I’ll be starting a postdoc in April with
@de_lab
at the University of Memphis! Really excited to shift focus and start applying what I’ve learnt from my benchmarking with
@lgoer_compchem
in some proper enzyme modeling.
So so so proud of Manuel, the first
@memphis_chem
undergrad in my group to seek a PhD in Chemistry. Blown away by the quality and quantity of work he's done with
@EveryWhereChem
in one year of grad school.
Sad to realize that Mimi Parker's passing technically lands on my wedding anniversary. When
@lowtheband
first entrenched themselves as an all-time favorite, I was a teenager who never truly knew love and never knew grief. Now I have been fortunate enough to find true love 1/
#ACSFall2023
was another end to end gauntlet packed with great science, old friends, new friends, perfect SF weather, Council, sleep deprivation, gut expanding food and spirits. Stuck in DFW for a few extra hours tho. Blehhhh
@melissabaker712
Who on earth would mock this? Selecting my grad school and advisor were like two of the biggest decisions ever made in my life. Lord there is some raw nastiness on this medium
2nd pre-print from the DeYonker group! Atsu's study of chorismate mutase with QM-cluster model building, how the active site/solvent interface affects QM models, and MD->QM sampling workflows. Feedback appreciated, unless you plan to B3LYP-shame us!
The current streak of pubs ends with our study of MgCCH and MgCCH+ with Prof. Lucy Ziurys at U Arizona! Part of the special issue in memory of Tim Lee. Lucy's and group add the five lowest energy rotational transitions
A nice example from my group where QM-cluster models performs well with "bioorganic" enzymes. I'm kind of surprised how many views the paper has received already in its first week online!
Didja know that my group publicly released software to automatically construct QM-cluster models of enzymes? We just pushed version 0.2.1 that can process protein-ligand F/SAPT calculations and quantitatively rank the importance of active site fragments!
I'm so glad that my research and teaching are at a stable trajectory. I have been able to focus all of my imposter syndrome energy on my musical endeavors.
@AzevedoAudio
If you're lacking POC, Robert aiki Aubrey Lowe's soundtrack to Candyman. Aphex Twin Mt Fuji cassette, venetian snares traditional synthesizer music. Also kudos to everyone who has posted stuff I've never heard before here!
Had a great zoom meeting with a potential undergrad researcher. Huge red flag though: no comments about how adorable my cat was being in the background. Not one. 🤣
Atsu's first first-author paper in my group! No transition metals in this tetraatomic molecule. What could possibly go wrong? Everything went wrong. But that's part of the fun with inorganic electronic structure theory, right?
@UMAstroChem
@memphis_chem
#chemtwitter
I am struggling heavily to improve the writing of my research group. It is affecting my mental health and the morale of the lab. I'm starting to worry about grant renewal prospects. Advice?
My favorite thing about giving a talk in the
#ACSSpring2022
symposium honoring John Stanton was that I was able to say "the electronic structure of this molecule is super weird but I bet John Stanton could help me fix it" and then John Stanton was like "I can help you fix it"
New astrochemistry-related heterogenous catalysis modeling from me and my long-time collaborator Marco!
"Nitrile regio-synthesis by Ni centers on a siliceous surface: implications in prebiotic chemistry" - now published in Chemical Communications
Harry Gray could have said it better but the social media blowback is wack. Find things you are compelled to become great at doing. For me, it's being a good dad/husband, doing computational chemistry research, and making electronic music.
Lab kudos
#2
, Atsu passed his prospectus meeting and was voted Outstanding 4th year grad student researcher by dept faculty, Chris Barksdale, an undergrad/now post-bacc won an ACS PHYS undergrad research award and just lined up a sweet job!
My daughter (age 7 + 4 months) slept the entire night four nights this week. A feat she has not accomplished since she was age 10-14 months. Needless to say the overall household energy level has been a BIT higher than normal.
@misterminsoo
I'm always whining about how no good bands come to Memphis, and it wasn't until I checked their tour dates for the upcoming that I realized they were here last November. Fuuuuuuuuuuuu
Classes start in seven days and I still haven't read my teaching evaluations from the Spring. It's the third time I taught undergrad level Inorganic Chem but the first time I felt like I did a good job. I'll be sad if my perception was wrong
@lowtheband
since u seem to be in an AMA mood lately, I dove deep into and found a show from 2014 (!!!) Where u played don't walk away and disappearing, sounding nearly complete. Why didn't yall think they were ready for 1s and 6s or double negative?
The groop! Not including Qianyi, who hopefully has allergies and not covid, and Kaustubh, who is vacationing in India with family. Bonus visitor, Paige B from the Herbert group
@OSU_CBC
!
@memphis_chem
I can get grumpy when students call me Nate. Dr. Nate is fine, and either way I'm not going to ignore or attack someone for not understanding convention. Also, I delayed starting undergrad research for an entire semester because of anxiety over how to start my email to the prof.
I can't believe that I need to have this conversation, but judging people's professionalism by the opening line of an email, when they are simply using a variant of "hello" is just gatekeeping. It's bias, pure and simple.
Overdue to recognize Taylor Santaloci
@tsantaloci12
who has been doing a fantastic job as a postdoc in the group since January! Learning about F-SAPT, snake venom metalloproteinases, and helping with huge QoL leaps in our enzymology model creation code. Yay!
@BldnBoneMarrow
@FouadChouairi
This is a vastly kinder and more diplomatic way to make a comment on readability. I will start using it. If language or grammar obfuscates meaning or slows down my ability to read the paper, I feel obligated to comment. If not, it becomes the job of the editor instead of author
Just a normal night at
#ACSSpring2024
being forced to join the NOLA St Patrick's Day parade with
@DePrinceFSU
for a few blocks because the sidewalk was closed
@ronnui_
big time same. There's been less than 5 times in the last 5 years where I forget whether or not I took my vyvanse in the morning and then take a second one and I'm a tweaked out anxious mess the entire day.