Departmental Newsletter
Colloquium Schedule
Fall 2025 Chemistry and Biochemistry Colloquium Series
The Chemistry and Biochemistry Colloquia Series is presented Wednesday afternoons at 3:30 p.m. in McKinley 224 unless otherwise noted.
| Date | Seminar Speaker, Title | 
|---|---|
| 09/03 | 
                              
                               Prof. James Checco (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), Affinity-Driven Aryl Diazonium Labeling to Study Peptide-Receptor Interactions  | 
                           
| 10/01 | 
                              
                               Prof. Chong Zu (University of Washington-St. Louis), Quantum Diamond Sparkles  | 
                           
| 
                              
                               10/15  | 
                           
                           
                              
                               Prof. Jun Ohata (North Carolina State University), Protein Bioconjugation and Chemical Evolution in Nonaqueous Systems  | 
                           
| 
                              
                               10/22  | 
                           
                           
                              
                               Prof. Saswata Dasgupta (Kansas State University), Advancing Quantum Chemical and Data-Driven Modeling for Accurate Condensed-Phase Simulations  | 
                           
| 
                              
                               10/29  | 
                           
                           
                              
                               Prof. Yu-Shan Lin (Tufts University), Structure Prediction of Cyclic Peptides via Molecular Dynamics and Machine Learning  | 
                           
| 11/05 | 
                              
                               Prof. Thanh Do (University of Tennessee), Structural Ion Mobility Spectrometry: What Can We Really Measure?  | 
                           
| 11/12 | 
                              
                               Prof. Victor Ryzhov (Northern Illinois University), TBA  | 
                           
| 11/19 | 
                              
                               Prof. Bonnie Buss (University of Northern Colorado), TBA  | 
                           
Watkins Visiting Lecturers
The Watkins Visiting Professorship was created in 1974 by a grant from the Watkins Foundation. E. A. Watkins was vice president of Union National Bank, Wichita, in 1936 when he acquired a small iron foundry and wholesale hardware firm that he built into Watkins, Inc., a major steel fabrication and industrial supply company.
Watkins’ son, E. Leon Watkins, a 1936 WSU alumnus, succeeded his father as president of the firm. After Leon Watkins’ death in 1971, his widow, Roberta, also a WSU alumna, announced that the Watkins’ Foundation Board of Trustees had determined that “the sole project of the foundation shall be the support of the Watkins Visiting Professorship at Wichita State University.” The departments of Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Geology and Physics share the professorship.