Roberta Day received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, spent five years in the research laboratories of the Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, NY, and then received a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. After postdoctoral work sponsored by both the Damon Runyon Memorial Fund and the National Institutes of Health, she joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, rising through the ranks to Full Professor in the Chemistry Department. She initiated the use of on-line electronic homework in general chemistry at UMass, is one of the inventors of the OWL system, has been either PI or Co-I for several major national grants for the development of OWL, and has authored a large percentage of the questions in the OWL database for General Chemistry. Recognition for her work includes the American Chemical Society Connecticut Valley Section Award for outstanding contributions to chemistry and the UMass College of Natural Science and Mathematics Outstanding Teacher Award. Her research in chemistry as an X-ray crystallographer has resulted in the publication of over 180 articles in professional journals. She is now a Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, and continues her work on the development of electronic learning environments for chemistry.
Beatrice Botch is the Director of General Chemistry at the University of Massachusetts and Senior Lecturer II in Chemistry. She received her B.A. in Chemistry from Barat College in Lake Forest, Illinois, and her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Michigan State University. She completed her graduate work at Argonne National Laboratory under the direction of Dr. Thom Dunning Jr., and was a post-doctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology working in the group of Professor William A. Goddard III. She taught at Southwest State University in Minnesota, and Wittenberg University in Ohio, before joining the faculty of the University of Massachusetts where she has received the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics Outstanding Teacher Award. She is a general chemistry content author, and one of the inventors of OWL, the Online Web-based Learning system developed at the University in partnership with Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning. OWL is licensed by Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning and has already helped hundreds of thousands of college students learn general and organic chemistry. Professor Botch has been principal investigator and co-investigator on a number of grants and contracts related to OWL development and dissemination. Current interests include developing electronically delivered learning materials to help students acquire the background needed to succeed in chemistry, and the creation of interactive electronic textbooks for general chemistry. Back to Top
Peter Lillya, emeritus professor of chemistry at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst , earned an AB at Kalamazoo College in 1959 and a PhD at Harvard University in 1964 working with E. J. Corey. He was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow (1959, Hon.), an NSF Predoctoral Fellow (1959-63), an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow (1969-71), a member of American Chemical Society, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His research in organic, organometallic and polymer chemistry featured photoisomerization mechanisms, mechanism and bonding in organotransitionmetal compounds, energetic and associative polymers and discotic liquid crystals. His current interests include design of interactive Internet organic chemistry learning materials such as tutors, simulations and questions as well as processes in the earth's atmosphere as a context for teaching chemistry. During his career at UMass, he has served as an adjunct professor of polymer science and engineering and as a visiting scholar at the chemistry departments of UCLA, Stanford University, and the University of Mainz as well as the Max Planck Institute fur Hochpolymer Forschung, in Mainz. Professor Lillya was a TEACHnology Fellow at UMass in 1999-2000 and was a Distinguished Teacher of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in 2000. He is a co-author of the Organic Chemistry OWL system.
Stephen S. Hixson earned his BA degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1965 and, in 1970, his Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the University of Wisconsin working with Professor Howard Zimmerman. Following a year as postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University with Professor Frank Westheimer, he joined the faculty at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he is currently a professor of chemistry. During his 38 years on the faculty, he has taught organic chemistry at the undergraduate and graduate levels, concentrating recently on the large, two-semester introductory organic chemistry course for non-chemistry science majors. He has carried out research in the areas of organic photochemistry and the application of photochemical techniques to the study of ribosome structure. Since 2000 he has focused on developing a web-based tutoring and homework system for learning organic chemistry. He is a co-author of the Organic Chemistry OWL system.
William Vining received his B.S. degree in Chemistry from the State University of New York College at Oneonta and his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from UNC-Chapel Hill, working on the modification of electrode surfaces with polymer-bound redox catalysts. He then spent three years working in industry for S.C. Johnson and Son (Johnson Wax) in Racine Wisconsin. He then became an assistant professor of inorganic chemistry at Hartwick College and eventually Department Chair. It was here that Bill started working on education software, first creating the set of simulations called Chemland. This led to work with Jack Kotz on the first General Chemistry CD-ROM, a distance learning course produced with Archipelago Productions. This work led to a move to the University of Massachusetts where he served as Director of General Chemistry and formed a group working on a variety of software projects. During this time, his work blended with that of the chemists starting OWL. After nine years at UMass, Bill decided to move back to a primarily undergraduate institution and arrived back at SUNY Oneonta, where he now works with undergraduates, Cow Town Productions, and the UMass OWL team. |
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