Committee

Leslie Hicks
Co-Chair

Leslie Hicks is an associate professor of analytical chemistry. Her work primarily focuses on the study of proteomics and protein post-translational modifications using mass spectrometry, and identifying biologically active peptides in plants. She is co-chair of the SWELL committee and the NSF REU SUROC program.

Training: Safe Zone, Mental Health First Aid

Kathleen Nevins
Co-Chair

Kathleen Nevins grew up in Buffalo, NY, and earned her BS in chemistry from Canisius College and her PhD in chemistry from SUNY Buffalo. Between undergraduate and graduate school she partipated in a year-long volunteer program in New York City. She has been an instructor and supervisor of undergraduate laboratories in the Department of Chemistry since 2012. Her passions include curriculum development and improving the overall student learning experience, including student wellness. Her hobbies are. traveling, working out, spending time with friends and family and chasing her young children around!

Training: Mental Health First Aid, Haven, Safe Zone, Green Zone, Coach Approach

Jeff Aubé

Jeffrey Aubé received a BS in chemistry from the University of Miami in 1980 and earned a PhD from Duke University in 1984. Following an NIH postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University, he joined the University of Kansas Department of Medicinal Chemistry in 1986. He remained at KU until 2015, when he moved to UNC, where he is a professor in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and jointly appointed to the Department of Chemistry and is a member of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer center. His research interests began in synthetic organic chemistry and have since extended to medicinal and biological chemistry.

Training: Safe Zone, Mental Health First Aid

Dorothy Erie

Dorothy obtained her B.S. from Louisiana State University and her Ph.D. from Rutgers – The State University of New Jersey. Her research group is focused in two main areas: (1) Atomic force microscopy and fluorescence studies of protein-protein and protein-nucleic acid interactions. (2) Mechanistic studies of transcription elongation.

Thomas Freeman

Thomas earned his B.S. in Biochemistry at Xavier University of Louisiana in 2003. Subsequently, he earned his Ph.D. at Tulane University in Biochemistry. He did his postdoctoral training at UNC as a SPIRE, Seeding Postdoctoral Innovators in Research and Education, scholar. He spent a year teaching biochemistry at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, and joined the faculty of the Chemistry Department at UNC in 2014 as a STEM Teaching Assistant Professor. Thomas serves as the Executive Director of the Chancellor’s Science Scholars program.

Training: Mental Health First Aid, Haven, Safe Zone

Kelsey Kean

Kelsey Kean is a SPIRE (Seeding Postdoctoral Innovators in Research and Education) post-doctoral scholar working in the lab of Dr. Marcey Waters. She received her B.S. in Biochemistry from The University of Tulsa in 2012 and completed her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Biophysics at Oregon State University under the direction of Dr. Andy Karplus in 2018. Beginning in January 2020, she will be spending a year teaching in the Department of Biological and Biomedical Science at North Carolina Central University in Durham.

David Lawrence

Professor Lawrence earned his B.S. in Biological Sciences from UC Irvine and his PhD in Chemistry, organic synthesis, from UCLA. He was subsequently an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller University in New York City. He is currently a Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor at UNC. In addition to his teaching and research duties in the Department of Chemistry, he is Chairman of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry in the School of Pharmacy, a Professor of Pharmacology in the School of Medicine, and an Investigator in the Lineberger Cancer Center.

Frank Leibfarth

Frank Leibfarth earned his BS from the University of South Dakota, in 2008 with degrees in Chemistry and Physics. He completed his Ph.D. at 2013, at the University of California, under the direction of Professor Craig J. Hawker. He pursued his postdoctoral studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the direction of Professor Timothy F. Jamison, and began his independent career in 2016 at the University of North Carolina. Frank enjoys working with graduate students and undergraduates in his group to develop methods for the synthesis of novel polymers with application to sustainability and human health.

Training: UNC CFE Mentoring Training & the HHMI Summer Institute on Scientific Teaching Practices

Kathleen Riley

Kathleen Riley grew up in Memphis, TN and later attended Mississippi State University where she earned a B.S. in Chemistry in 2018. She currently works in the Gagné Lab on a project aimed to use Pd-Si⁺ complexes to cleave sp³C-O bonds. She is The SWELL graduate student liaison from AM-Wise and is passionate improving graduate student wellness and STEM outreach.