YORK COLLEGE
York College
94-20 Guy R. Brewer Blvd.
Jamaica, NY 11451
York College, founded in 1966, is the newest of CUNY's nine senior colleges. It is located on a 50 acre campus in Jamaica, Queens. Queens is one of the most ethnically diverse areas of New York and the campus reflects this. The student body is drawn from a broad cross-section of the city's diverse population, with representation from at least 50 countries, from Algeria to Yemen. The Jamaica neighborhood, which dates back to the 1600s, is a vibrant shopping area. York is easily accessible by bus, subway train, railroad or car, and is close to both LaGuardia and JFK airports.
York currently contributes Graduate Faculty to the Chemistry Doctoral Program, representing a broad yet complementary range of interests. As a result, graduate students will find themselves working in modern laboratories alongside dedicated faculty, experienced post-doctoral associates and technicians. This growing Department has modern well-equipped laboratories, and a full complement of major research instrumentation to support these efforts. Furthermore, York’s campus is also home to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Northeast Regional Laboratory. York and FDA scientists have collaborative research projects, topical colloquia and seminars.
York is very well equipped with a full complement of major research instrumentation. High-field NMR facilities include a 400 MHz Varian INOVA with multi-probe for liquids, and a 200 MHz Varian Unity and 200 MHz Tecmag, both with solid/liquid capabilities. A number of mass spectrometers are also housed - a Thermo LCQ Ion Trap MS, a Waters QTOF Micro, and an Agilent GC-MS 5973 with network mass selective detector. These are chiefly used for analysis of proteins/peptides, including post-translational modifications. Funding has also been approved for a nanobore HPLC for LC-MS/MS studies and a Thermo vMALDI-LTQ linear ion trap. Molecular spectroscopy includes two Raman spectrometers (Jasco and Princeton Instruments), several high-sensitivity FTIRs, two spectrofluorimeters, a CD spectropolarimeter (soon to be equipped with stop-flow capabilities), as well as numerous UV/Vis/NIR systems. Several laser set-ups - Coherent Ar/K ion lasers, Lambda Physik SCANmate 2E dye laser and a COMPex 102 excimer laser – are also featured. Liquid chromatography systems include a Varian ProStar HPLC with autosampler/fraction collector, a Waters, Inc. HPLC system, and a Shimadzu LC-10AT HPLC system, all with dual wavelength detection. A full range of equipment for advanced biochemical techniques includes peptide synthesizers, a DNA synthesizer, and plate readers, along with standard bio-equipment such as electrophoresis set-ups, incubator-shakers, thermal cyclers, micro- and ultracentrifuges, a vacufuge, a freeze dryer, ultra-low-temp freezers, walk-in cold rooms, animal quarters and chromatography refrigerators. Finally, synthetic laboratory facilities include such specialized equipment as Parr hydrogenation apparatus (both low and high pressure), an ozone generator, photochemical reactors, a Kugelrohr distillation system and a CEM Discover microwave reactor.
Graduate students in CUNY also have complete access to the University’s communal resources, such as the Graduate Center’s on-line journals and databases, the Central Computing Facility, and services such as the CUNY X-Ray Crystallographic Facility.
Doctoral Faculty and Research Interests
Gregory Boutis
Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002
Physics, Molecular Biophysics, Physical Chemistry: Solid state NMR (technique and hardware development); magnetic resonance imaging (k-space, q-space); quantum control; applications in probing structure in biopolymers (current efforts focus on elastin), semiconductors (focus on spintronic devices) and carbon nanotubes.
Emmanuel J. Chang
Assistant Professor; Ph.D., The Rockefeller University, 2005
Analytical biochemistry, molecular biophysics: Mass spectrometry of proteins and peptides; Proteomics; Analysis of protein phosphoryation and other post-translationsal modifications; Gas phase ion fragmentation chemistry; Applications to cell-cycle biology, host-pathogen interactions and bioterrorism.
Ruel B. Desamero
Assistant Professor; Ph.D., University of Connecticut, 1998
Biophysical chemistry: Structure and function of biological systems; kinetic and spectroscopic characterization of proteins with the goal of understanding the molecular basis of its function.
Stephen Philip Fearnley
Assistant Professor; Ph.D., University of Salford, UK, 1992
Organic: Development of new synthetic methodology for total synthesis of natural product targets including: novel organosilicon mediated annulations for construction of bioactive ether arrays and C-aryl glycosides; investigation of the intramolecular reactivity of oxazolone, a density functionalized heterocycle; total synthesis of alkaloid and polycyclic ether targets.
Lawrence W. Johnson
Professor; Ph.D., Louisiana State University, 1971
Physical: Application of single molecule techniques (e.g. FRET, FCS, quantum dots) to the detection of RNA and DNA and the understanding of RNA-protein complex dynamics.
Jong-Ill Lee
Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Michigan State University, 2001
Physical Organic, Photochemistry: Development of a new drug delivery system which can target a specific organ, collect useful physiological data, and release drugs when a light signal is given.
Panayiotis Meleties
Associate Professor, Acting Dean of Academic Affairs; Ph.D., City College of the City University of New York, 1993
Organic: Carbohydrate chemistry; natural products; neuroscience.
Adam A. Profit
Assistant Professor; Ph.D., SUNY at Stonybrook, 1997
Biological/Organic: chemical biology of signal transduction including the development of novel kinase inhibitors, afinity labeling, protein-ligand interactions and proteomics.
Angelo Rossi
Professor; Ph.D., University of Connecticut, 1970
Theoretical: Application of high performance parallel computing on both stored memory and distributed systems to problems involving large-scale scientific computing, for example, protein folding.