Hi Reddit! I am Ray Garant and am the director of public policy at the American Chemical Society. Ask me anything about environmental and regulatory policy, advancing innovation, science education, and/or energy/climate policy. I manage policy development and messaging for the ACS with a portfolio that spans scientific innovation, jobs, education, and science policy, as well as the international, environmental and regulatory arenas. I also oversee the ACS Science & the Congress Project (www.acs.org/scicon), a well-respected program of congressional staff briefings and that improve decision makers’ understandings of the role that science can and should play in public policy. From 1993 - 1994 I was a staffer in the office of (now former) Representative Phil Sharp (D-IN). While on the Hill, I followed environmental, judicial and healthcare issues. I studied chemistry in university, getting a B.S. at U Mass-Dartmouth and an M.S. at Iowa State University; at ISU I managed a project to communicate science to the public. I also did research at the Ames Laboratory of the Department of Energy and at the U.S. Naval Underwater Systems Center. I’ll be back at 11 am EST (8 am PST, 4 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask me anything!

Hi Reddit! I am John Engelman; I am retired from S. C. Johnson & Son, Inc. and am a Career Consultant for the American Chemical Society. I am here to discuss resumes, interviewing and three workshops. Finding your Path, Working in Industry, and Acing the Interview. The ACS Career Consultant Program, an ACS member benefit, gives members access to a consultant to help guide you through job searching, career transitions, resume writing, and more. To give some background I have both an AAS in Industrial Chemistry Technology and an honorary Doctor of Science from Ferris State University in 2003. I spent 49 years in industry working in radiation and radiochemistry, nuclear power plant under construction, composites, engineering thermoplastics, adhesives, consumer products and capital construction projects. In addition to my industrial experience I have been an American Chemical Society volunteer since 1997 and a career consultant since 2004. I have chaired the Division of Chemical Technicians, Division of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry and the Committee on Technician Affairs. I was recognized as an American Chemical Society Fellow in 2010. Hi Reddit! I am Mary Engelman; I work at Eastman Chemical Company and am a Career Consultant for the American Chemical Society. I am here to discuss resumes, interviewing and three workshops offered by the ACS. I am also here to give you some tips to help look for positions in the chemical enterprise. The ACS Career Consultant Program, an ACS member benefit, gives members access to a consultant to show you some tools to help in your job search, career transitions, resume writing, and more. A little of background about me, I have an Associate degree from Northeast State Community College where I was awarded the Outstanding Alumna award in 2011. I have 24 years’ experience working in industrial research. From working at the bench, to scale-up, to pilot plant programs. I am currently working in project and portfolio management at Eastman Chemical Company. In addition to my industrial experience I have been an American Chemical Society volunteer since 1991(starting as a student Affiliate Group Chair) and a career consultant since 2004. I have been in several positions; Division of Chemical Technicians, Division of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, Division Activity Committee, Committee on Technician Affairs and Nomination and Election Committee. I was recognized as an American Chemical Society Fellow in 2009. We’ll be back at 11:00 AM EST (8 am PT, 4 pm UTC) to answer your questions about chemistry careers, résumés, interview tips and more!

Hi Reddit, We are Hadi Fares, chemistry PhD candidate, and Joseph B. Schlenoff, Leo Mandelkern Professor of Polymer Science at Florida State University and Senior Editor of the ACS Langmuir journal. We will answer questions about our research focused on polymer materials as well as the ChemChamps competition organized by the American Chemical Society. Joseph Schlenoff (JBS): I am a chemist interested in polyelectrolyte and zwitterated interfaces and their bioapplicability. Polyelectrolytes were thought to be un-processable until a couple of decades ago. We have discovered ways to process biocompatible synthetic polyelectrolytes using salt instead of heat. Salt helps in exposing the charged sites in these macromolecules, making it easier to extrude them to form different shapes such as tapes, tubes and rods, or to deposit them using the layer-by-layer (Lbl) technique or spin-coating. Hadi Fares (HF): I am interested in charge compensation and diffusion inside polyelectrolyte films and complexes. We found a way to eliminate salt trapped in polyelectrolyte multilayers during buildup to obtain stoichiometric uniform thin films (few hundreds of nanometers). Using this new platform, I’m currently studying polyelectrolyte diffusion in these films in an attempt to make better materials and understand the way polyelectrolytes behave in complexes. These films have been proposed for uses as coatings and reservoirs in fields ranging from electronics to medicine. I’m also the winner of last year’s “Chemistry Champions”, a science communication competition organized by the American Chemical Society. Besides the many lessons I learned about communicating science, the competition has allowed me to travel to attend a public briefing on science education policy on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. I also shot an upcoming “ACS Reactions” (https://www.youtube.com/user/ACSReactions) video about why we salivate when we see food (my favorite topic). You can read more about my ChemChamps experience in this blog post (https://speakingaboutscience.wordpress.com/). I will also be answering questions about this year’s edition of the competition starting soon. Every chemist 35 or under should apply!! Feel free to ask us anything about polyelectrolyte materials, life in graduate school or ChemChamps! We will be online at 11:00 am ET (8 am PST, 4 pm UTC) to begin answering your questions. [EDIT] 11:00am ET, I am online to answer your questions. Thanks for the participation! - HF [EDIT] 12:00pm ET, I answered some questions. We will be back at 1:00pm ET to answer more. Thank you! -HF [EDIT] 1:00pm ET, I am online to answer more questions -JBS

Hi Reddit! I’m the creator of the American Chemical Society’s Reactions YouTube channel, a weekly series that highlights the chemistry in everyday life. I also manage ACS Productions, the Society’s award-winning video team. I received undergraduate degrees in Genetics and Science Communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MBA from George Mason University. I’ve been producing science videos on YouTube for most of the site’s 10-year history. Bill Nye has said that “if you want to teach something, you have to entertain people… Mr. Wizard encouraged a generation of scientists and engineers by doing this.” This entertaining, educational approach is at the heart of Reactions. We’ve produced videos explaining why dogs smell each other’s butts, why a pinch of salt can make bad coffee taste better and how garbage kickstarted the modern chemical industry, as well as episodes on the chemistry of hangovers, tattoos, avocados, bacon, moisturizer and, yes, cats. The series (and its predecessor, Bytesize Science) has received more than 20 million views and grown to 250,000 combined followers on YouTube and Facebook. Reactions episodes have been featured on the Today Show, NPR, Washington Post and more than 100 other media outlets. The series has collaborated with noted science communicators and YouTubers, including Joe Hanson (It’s OK to be Smart), Deborah Blum (The Poisoner’s Handbook), Raychelle Burks (@DrRubidium), Andy Brunning (Compound Interest), Vanessa Hill (BrainCraft) and Rachel Feltman (Washington Post’s Speaking of Science blog), among others. In 2015, Wired featured Reactions in its list of “Science Blogs, Twitter Feeds and Channels We Love.” I’m excited to do this AMA about communicating chemistry on YouTube. Feel free to ask me anything about the making of Reactions, how science videos can reach the public, using social media for science communication and questions about video production and YouTube, in general. I’ll be back at 11 am EST (8 am PST, 4 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask me anything! [Edit at 11:45am EST:] Thanks for all the great questions! Had some technical issues, but I’m now up and running and replying the qs below. [Edit at 12:45pm EST] OK I tried to respond to as many of these as I could. I’ll pop back online later this afternoon to answer a few more. [Edit 10:30pm EST] Responded to a few more. Thanks for all the great questions – this was fun! And if you haven’t already, head over to Reactions and subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/user/ACSReactions

ACS AMA Hi Reddit! Robert Strongin and Jiries Meehan-Atrash here from Portland State University. We recently had a paper in ACS Omega entitled “Toxicant Formation in Dabbing: The Terpene Story” (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsomega.7b01130). We describe there that “dabbing” means to put a small amount of cannabis-containing liquid such as butane hash oil on a hot surface, then inhale the vapors via a water pipe. This is an example of a noncombustible use of cannabis, i.e. not requiring smoking; Cannabis dabbing has found increased popularity as medicinal and recreational use has increased. Our study concludes “that dabbing, although considered a form of vaporization, may in fact deliver significant amounts of toxic degradation products”. In this Ask Us Anything, we look forward to answering your questions about our research on chemical analysis of the vapors produced by cannabis “dabbing” – this could include the instrumentation we used, the chemical nature of terpenes and their degradation products, and toxicological ramifications. Note that we are not medical experts, but chemists conducting analysis. About us: Robert Strongin, Ph.D.: I am a professor in the Portland State University Department of Chemistry and I have affiliate appointments at the Oregon Health and Sciences University. My research focuses broadly on redox and chromophore chemistry. It encompasses the creation of biosensors and molecular probes for studying oxidative stress and cancer, as well as the investigation of chemical reactions and products associated with the usage of electronic cigarettes and new cannabis formulations. I received my B.A. in chemistry from Temple University, then worked as an industrial chemist at FMC Corporation and SmithKline Beechman. I then obtained a Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. Upon graduation, I began my independent career at Louisiana State University, then later moving to Portland State University. In addition to my academic research, I’m a biotech startup founder, an advocate for science funding, a regular grant review panel chairman at the National Institutes of Health, and dedicate much time to improving STEM education. Jiries Meehan-Atrash: I am a Palestinian-American who attended high school at the Colegio “El Estudio” in Madrid, Spain. I then received a B.S. in chemistry at State University of New York at New Paltz, where I also did research in organic chemistry. After working in New York City as a freelance Spanish-English technical translator for two years, I enrolled in the chemistry graduate program at Portland State University. I’ve been working on the cannabis vaporizer toxicology project since its inception in January 2017 in Dr. Strongin’s lab. We’ll be back at 1pm EDT (10am PDT, 5pm UTC) to start answering your questions. We’re online now, taking your questions -acs signed off -acs

ACS AMA Hi Reddit! Darla Henderson and Marshall Brennan here from ACS Publications! We are responsible for ChemRxiv a preprint server for chemistry launched in fully functioning beta form with strategic input from the American Chemical Society (ACS), the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), and the German Chemical Society (GDCh) as a community-led project. ChemRxiv allows researchers to post their early manuscripts – and all of the source data – online ahead of submission to a journal in order to facilitate discussion and feedback on the work prior to formal publication. ChemRxiv is taking a “data first” approach to preprints, and allows a wide (and growing!) array of different file types to be viewed and interacted with right from the browser. In the past six weeks, ChemRxiv has already helped to disseminate more than 82 preprint manuscripts and revisions prior to peer review on every subject from computational chemical theory to natural product synthesis. We believe that preprints accelerate research, increase transparency, and level the playing field for researchers across career stages and geography – and we’re looking to continue developing ChemRxiv in a way that best meets the community’s needs and expectations of such a tool. Darla Henderson, PhD: I am the Publisher and Asst. Director of Open Access in the Global Journals Development team of ACS Publications. I am responsible for the strategic and financial oversight of ACS’ open access programs and journals, and also co-conceived and oversaw the development of ChemRxiv. I joined ACS in 2008, where initially I oversaw the general and multidisciplinary chemistry journals portfolio, including JACS, and launched new journals such as ACS Catalysis. This followed a stint in book publishing at John Wiley & Sons. I have a PhD in organic/biological chemistry from Duke University. I previously co-hosted an AUA on “Open Access Chemistry” in early 2016 https://redd.it/42r7xk Marshall Brennan, PhD: I am the Publishing Manager at ChemRxiv; I oversee the day-to-day development and quality control of ChemRxiv. I earned my PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before undertaking a postdoctoral fellowship at UT Austin. I spent a year and a half as an editor for Nature Chemistry before moving to the ACS to work on ChemRxiv. Ask us anything about preprint servers! We’ll be back at 1pm EDT (10am PDT, 5pm UTC) to start answering your questions.

ACS AMA Hello Reddit! My name is Warren Chan, and I am currently Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering at The University of Toronto. I also serve as Associate Editor of ACS Nano. I am very much looking forward to my first time participating in Reddit. I obtained my B.S. from University of Illinois in 1996 and a PhD from Indiana University in 2001, both in Chemistry. Then I did my post-doctoral work at the University of California-San Diego in Biomedical Engineering and I joined the faculty at the University of Toronto in 2002 at the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering. I am interested in developing nanotechnology for diagnosing and treating cancer and infectious diseases. As a chemist, I learned how to make and design nanomaterials and as I started my independent career, I wanted to focus on applying these materials to the medical field. My interest can span two domains: (a) outside of the body, I am interested in developing handheld nanotechnology devices that can identify biomarkers and link them to diseases. These devices can also measure these biomarkers with a single drop of blood. (b) inside the body, I am interested in figuring out how to deliver nanoparticles to the diseased site. I think the biggest challenge of using nanotechnology is to be able to deliver enough of the medical agent to the site of action. I work with engineers, chemists, biologists, and clinicians to solve these problems. I would like forward to our discussion. Ask me anything about bionanotechnology! I’ll be back at 11am EDT (8am PDT, 3pm UTC) to start answering your questions. It has been awesome chatting with everybody on nanotechnology! I am signing off! Have an awesome day!

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ACS AMA Hi Reddit! I’m Alexa Billow. I’m a writer for ACS Reactions https://www.youtube.com/user/ACSReactions, a YouTube show about chemistry from the American Chemical Society and PBS Digital Studios. We make fun zany videos about everything from the chemistry of wine myths to how astronaut pee could help us get to Mars (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6x54zYuqXk). I’m also a freelance science writer whose work has appeared on SciShow and the Science Magazine YouTube channel and podcast. I’m also working on a new podcast effort for ACS, so if you want to head on over to http://bit.ly/rxnselements and tell us what you’d like to hear, I’d totally love that. I have a master’s degree in molecular biology that was meant to be a Ph.D. until I realized I can’t stand doing research and would rather be writing. That doesn’t mean that research isn’t important–just that people who are more patient than me should be doing it. I moved to Washington for an internship at Science and then joined ACS, and I love getting to write about science every day. Ask me anything about science writing, podcasting, writing about chemistry as a biologist, or finding your way to a career in science communication. I’ll be back at 1pm EDT (10am PDT, 5pm UTC) to start answering your questions. -ACS typeset edits EDIT: I have to run to a meeting! Thanks for all the great questions, everyone.

ACS AMA Hi Reddit! My name is Suzanne Bell, and I am the Chair of the Department of Forensic and Investigative Science at West Virginia University. I teach and conduct research in analytical and forensic chemistry and work with students from undergraduate through PhD. I joined the faculty here in 2003. Prior to then, I worked for the New Mexico State Police Crime Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Eastern Washington University. My PhD is from New Mexico State University. Beyond my faculty work, I served on the National Commission on Forensic Science as Chair of the Research and Scientific Inquiry Subcommittee. I also served as a commissioner on the Forensic Education Programs Accreditation Commission, and am currently an associated editor for chemistry for the Journal of Forensic Sciences. Additionally, I am a member of the ACS Experts program (www.acs.org/expertshttp://www.acs.org/experts). This is my second AMA with the ACS – you can see the previous session here https://redd.it/35pi9d Continuing on with that discussion, there is a lot of chemical analysis that goes into determining what evidence gunshot residue might provide. Some of the methods we use include scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray spectroscopies including energy-dispersive (EDS), and many types of mass spectrometry (MS). Note that in this discussion I am not an expert on tool markings or ballistics (ie physical marks caused by weapons nor trajectory of bullets). Ask me anything about forensic chemistry and how we apply it in shooting cases, or what educational paths are possible in the forensic sciences. I’ll be back at 1 pm EDT (10 am PDT, 5 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask me anything!

ACS AMA Hi Reddit! My name is Nathan Gianneschi and I research nanomaterials at the University of California, San Diego, but I am moving my laboratory to Northwestern University; coming soon, at the beginning of July this year. Recently work in my lab was published in ACS Central Science, an open access journal, entitled “Mimicking Melanosomes: Polydopamine Nanoparticles as Artificial Microparasols” http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acscentsci.6b00230. This work describes a nanomaterial that could be used to protect cells from UV damage. I look forward to answering your questions about this research today! More broadly, our research group takes an interdisciplinary approach to nanomaterials research with a focus on multifunctional materials with interests that include biomedical applications, programmed interactions with biomolecules and cells, and basic research into nanoscale materials design, synthesis and characterization. For this work I have been awarded the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award and with a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. My academic background started with my B.Sc. (Hons) at the University of Adelaide, Australia in 1999. In 2005 I completed my Ph.D at Northwestern University. Following a Dow Chemical postdoctoral fellowship at The Scripps Research Institute, in 2008 I began my independent career at the University of California, San Diego where I am currently Teddy Traylor Scholar and Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry, NanoEngineering and Materials Science & Engineering. In addition to my NIH citation, I was awarded a Dreyfus Foundation Fellowship, I am a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and am an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow. Ask me anything about using nanomaterials for biomedical applications, including this work on melanosome mimics. I will be back at 11am EDT (10am CDT, 8am PDT, 3pm UTC) to answer your questions. I’m back to answer questions (10am CDT). Hello! Thank you to all of you for your interest and fantastic questions. I have enjoyed trying to answer as many of you as possible, and I apologize if I was too brief, or could not get to your question today. Thank you to the ACS, and the journal, ACS Central Science for setting up this AMA session. All the best with your work, studies, life and health. Signing off - 12:57pm (CDT)

ACS AMA I am Mircea Dincă, and I am an Associate Professor of Chemistry at MIT, leading a lab focused on the design and synthesis of new materials for energy and environmental applications. In particular, we are interested in developing a class of materials called metal-organic frameworks, which are very porous. Most recently, we have shown that these “super-sponges” can adsorb record amounts of water, and that one can use this high water uptake to “suck” moisture from the atmosphere and deliver fresh water in water-stressed dry areas of low natural humidity. This work was recently published in ACS Central Science under the title “Record Atmospheric Fresh Water Capture and Heat Transfer with a Material Operating at the Water Uptake Reversibility Limit” and is available free of charge for readers at: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acscentsci.7b00186 This paper is just one example of many ways in which we use metal-organic frameworks for renewable energy applications, including record-setting supercapacitors and smart windows, or for heterogeneous catalysis of importance for large industrial processes such as ethylene dimerization, used in polyethylene production. For an overview of the many exciting opportunities offered by metal-organic frameworks as an up-and-coming class of advanced materials, check out our accessible Outlook on this field, also published recently in ACS Central Science “Grand Challenges and Future Opportunities for Metal–Organic Frameworks” http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acscentsci.7b00197 By way of background, I was born in Romania, and moved to the US for my undergraduate degree, which I obtained at Princeton University in 2003. I completed my graduate work at UC Berkeley and graduated with a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry in 2008. Following 2 years as a Postdoctoral Scholar at MIT, I started my independent research group at MIT in 2010, where I have been an Associate Professor since 2015. For my group’s research I have been awarded a Sloan Fellowship, a Cottrell Award, and a Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award. In 2016, I was selected for NSF’s Alan T. Waterman Award. Ask me anything about our work on metal-organic frameworks and its relationship to modern energy or environmental research! I will be back at 1pm EDT (11am PDT, 5pm UTC) to answer your questions. MD logged in, June 20, 12:58pm, EST. Thank you for your questions reddit! MD out June 20, 2:03pm, EST.