Dipolar and Quadrupolar Coupling in Partially Ordered Media (Research advisor: Dr. Baltisberger) - The goal of this project is to measure the quadrupolar coupling of an 17O labeled O2 or CO molecule bound to a heme complex. The initial results on CH3COCH3 have been promising and indicate that the measurement of the 17O couping in this compound is feasible.

Phosphate Glasses (Research advisor: Dr. Baltisberger) - The goal of this project is to study the effects of alkali metal substitution and quench rates on glass structure using Magic-Angle Hopping/Turning sequences on the NMR spectrometer. Currently the MAS probe is performing the MAT experiments quite well and studies are now in position to perform a large number of various composition/preparation samples.

Quadrupolar Nuclei (Research advisor: Dr. Baltisberger) - The goal of this project is to measure quadrupolar coupling in aluminate materials (partially in collaboration with researchers at UK and University of Idaho). We currently are getting the MQMAS experiments up and running on our instrument.

Fast Ligand Exchange Study (Research advisors: Dr. Baltisberger & Dr. Blair) - We are studying bis(quinuclidine) iodine (I) and bis(collidine) iodine (I) complexes and measuring the exchange of the organic ligands as a function of temperature and concentration to determine the full rate law and mechanism for this process.

Magic-Angle Spinning Stray Field Imaging (MAS-STRAFI) (Research advisor: Dr. Baltisberger) - While on sabbatical, Dr. Baltisberger invented a new method for doing stray field imaging at the ENS in Lyon France with Lyndon Emsley and Sabine Hediger. This project is still under development to implement the technique at Berea. The basic idea is to use a standard MAS probe which is mounted about 2-5 cm below the field center of the magnet. In this location, there is a massive gradient that can be used to conduct micro-imaging. Some of the problems include doing gradient linearity correction and spin rate corrections.

Solid State INADEQUATE (Research advisor: Dr. Baltisberger) - We are currently working on improving the INADEQUATE experiment through the use of z-filters to eliminate dispersive phase terms in the refocused experiment. This is part of a pulse-sequence development effort that has remained an area of interest to Dr. Baltisberger.

GAUSSIAN98 (Research advisor: Dr. Baltisberger) - We are working over January 2005 to implement a web interface for the GAUSSIAN computational chemistry program. When functional, we will open the door to computational chemistry to many other students at Berea College (and beyond). We have used computational chemistry tools to solve a number of problems, including calculating NMR peak positions, lowest energy molecular conformations and prediction of UV/Vis spectra.