From The College of Computer Mathematics and Natural Sciences
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5.16.24
Georgia Jiang
jjiang@umd.edu
301.405.5204
This graphic shows the chemical breakdown process of methanol(CH₃OH) into hydroxymethylene(HCOH). Image courtesy of Leah Dodson and Emily Hockey.
A team led by University of Maryland chemists discovered a new way to create “carbenes”, a class of highly reactive yet notoriously short-lived and unstable molecules. Involved in many high-energy chemical reactions such as the creation of carbohydrates, carbenes are crucial precursors to the building blocks of life on Earth—and possibly in space.
The scientists successfully formed a carbene called hydroxymethylene (HCOH) by breaking down methanol (CH₃OH, a common alcohol found in many industrial chemicals like formaldehyde) with pulses of ultraviolet radiation. The results were published in a paper on May 14, 2024, in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
“It’s surprising to see this carbene come from such a commonplace molecule like methanol—we have squirt bottles of it in labs everywhere,” said Leah Dodson, an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UMD and senior author of the paper. “193-nanometer wavelength UV lasers are also fairly standard. This means that carbenes could be naturally forming in places like space, where there is a lot of methanol and ultraviolet radiation. And further reactions of carbenes formed in space through this process could lead to biomolecules that make up life.”
The paper’s findings reveal clues about the mechanisms behind carbene formation and reaction on Earth, leading to a better understanding of the molecule’s potential to create sugars necessary for life.
“There’s established research that suggests that HCOH can react to form simple sugars, including some that have previously been detected in space,” said the study’s lead author Emily Hockey (Ph.D. ’24, chemistry). “We think it’s possible that this carbene, since it comes from a molecule that’s so ubiquitous in space and can be detected anywhere, is the missing piece bridging gaps in our knowledge of how methanol and simple sugars can lead to bigger, more advanced biomolecules.”
Dodson (left) and Hockey (right) observing data at the Advanced Light Source research facility at the DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where they conducted their experiments with methanol and ultraviolet radiation. Image courtesy of the same.
Due to their super-reactivity, carbene molecules usually have very short lifetimes. These characteristics make carbenes generally difficult for scientists to generate and observe, which has limited deep understanding of the molecule. But the UMD team’s novel method of producing carbenes allowed them to study the molecules closely enough to see their formation and decay over millisecond timescales. The researchers were surprised to discover that HCOH reacted relatively slowly with oxygen at room temperature.
“When we looked at HCOH’s reactivity in our room temperature system, we saw that it decayed within 15 milliseconds,” Hockey explained. “What’s interesting is that because carbenes are thought to be a super reactive species, it’s reasonable to assume that this carbene would react so quickly to something like oxygen that it’s impossible to catch. But that’s not what happened. Although the carbene was decaying faster and faster when exposed to oxygen, it was slow enough that we were still able to observe that decay.”
The researchers believe that their method of producing and studying carbenes will help astronomers and astrochemists gain new insights into the origins of life and how life in space may have evolved differently from life on Earth. They hope to build on their findings by looking closer at what happens during methanol’s breakdown and quantifying the different products yielded by methanol’s reaction to UV light.
“We know that carbenes like HCOH are formed during our process, but we’d like to dig deeper into what percentage of it ends up as formaldehyde, methylene or other hydrocarbon radicals, for example,” Hockey explained. “We originally thought all the products would be methoxy radicals but our experiments show that the process and the resulting products are more complicated than our original assumptions.”
Knowing the types and amount of products created by breaking down methanol with UV radiation would provide astronomers and astrochemists a more accurate outlook on astrophysical objects and how they evolved over billions of years.
“If the existing data on what is produced from methanol photodissociation are wrong, then the models being propagated will be incorrect as well—and our understanding of how life evolved from these molecules could also be compromised,” Dodson said. “Our follow-up work will hopefully lay the groundwork for those types of simulations.”
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About The University of Maryland College of Computer Mathematics and Natural Sciences
The thirst for new knowledge is a fundamental and defining characteristic of humankind. It is also at the heart of scientific endeavor and discovery. As we seek to understand our world, across a host of complexly interconnected phenomena and over scales of time and distance that were virtually inaccessible to us a generation ago, our discoveries shape that world. At the forefront of many of these discoveries is the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (CMNS).
CMNS is home to 12 major research institutes and centers and to 10 academic departments: astronomy, atmospheric and oceanic science, biology, cell biology and molecular genetics, chemistry and biochemistry, computer science, entomology, geology, mathematics, and physics.
Our Faculty
Our faculty are at the cutting edge over the full range of these disciplines. Our physicists fill in major gaps in our fundamental understanding of matter, participating in the recent Higgs boson discovery, and demonstrating the first-ever teleportation of information between atoms. Our astronomers probe the origin of the universe with one of the world’s premier radio observatories, and have just discovered water on the moon. Our computer scientists are developing the principles for guaranteed security and privacy in information systems.
Our Research
Driven by the pursuit of excellence, the University of Maryland has enjoyed a remarkable rise in accomplishment and reputation over the past two decades. By any measure, Maryland is now one of the nation’s preeminent public research universities and on a path to become one of the world’s best. To fulfill this promise, we must capitalize on our momentum, fully exploit our competitive advantages, and pursue ambitious goals with great discipline and entrepreneurial spirit. This promise is within reach. This strategic plan is our working agenda.
The plan is comprehensive, bold, and action oriented. It sets forth a vision of the University as an institution unmatched in its capacity to attract talent, address the most important issues of our time, and produce the leaders of tomorrow. The plan will guide the investment of our human and material resources as we strengthen our undergraduate and graduate programs and expand research, outreach and partnerships, become a truly international center, and enhance our surrounding community.
Our success will benefit Maryland in the near and long term, strengthen the State’s competitive capacity in a challenging and changing environment and enrich the economic, social and cultural life of the region. We will be a catalyst for progress, the State’s most valuable asset, and an indispensable contributor to the nation’s well-being. Achieving the goals of Transforming Maryland requires broad-based and sustained support from our extended community. We ask our stakeholders to join with us to make the University an institution of world-class quality with world-wide reach and unparalleled impact as it serves the people and the state of Maryland.
Our researchers are also at the cusp of the new biology for the 21st century, with bioscience emerging as a key area in almost all CMNS disciplines. Entomologists are learning how climate change affects the behavior of insects, and earth science faculty are coupling physical and biosphere data to predict that change. Geochemists are discovering how our planet evolved to support life, and biologists and entomologists are discovering how evolutionary processes have operated in living organisms. Our biologists have learned how human generated sound affects aquatic organisms, and cell biologists and computer scientists use advanced genomics to study disease and host-pathogen interactions. Our mathematicians are modeling the spread of AIDS, while our astronomers are searching for habitable exoplanets.
Our Education
CMNS is also a national resource for educating and training the next generation of leaders. Many of our major programs are ranked among the top 10 of public research universities in the nation. CMNS offers every student a high-quality, innovative and cross-disciplinary educational experience that is also affordable. Strongly committed to making science and mathematics studies available to all, CMNS actively encourages and supports the recruitment and retention of women and minorities.
Our Students
Our students have the unique opportunity to work closely with first-class faculty in state-of-the-art labs both on and off campus, conducting real-world, high-impact research on some of the most exciting problems of modern science. 87% of our undergraduates conduct research and/or hold internships while earning their bachelor’s degree. CMNS degrees command respect around the world, and open doors to a wide variety of rewarding career options. Many students continue on to graduate school; others find challenging positions in high-tech industry or federal laboratories, and some join professions such as medicine, teaching, and law.
The University of Maryland is a public land-grant research university. Founded in 1856, The University of Maryland is the flagship institution of the University System of Maryland. It is also the largest university in both the state and the Washington metropolitan area, with more than 41,000 students representing all fifty states and over 130 countries, and a global alumni network of over 388,000. Its twelve schools and colleges together offer over 200 degree-granting programs, including 92 undergraduate majors, 107 master’s programs, and 83 doctoral programs. The University of Maryland is a member of The Association of American Universities and competes in intercollegiate athletics as a member of the Big Ten Conference.
The University of Maryland’s proximity to the nation’s capital has resulted in many research partnerships with the federal government; faculty receive research funding and institutional support from agencies such as The National Institutes of Health, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, The National Institute of Standards and Technology, The Food and Drug Administration, The National Security Agency, and The Department of Homeland Security. The university is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity” and is labeled a “Public Ivy”, denoting a quality of education comparable to the private Ivy League. The University of Maryland is ranked very highly among universities both nationally and globally by several indices, including its perennially top-ranked criminology and criminal justice department.
In 2016, the University of Maryland-College Park and The University of Maryland- Baltimore formalized their strategic partnership after their collaboration successfully created more innovative medical, scientific, and educational programs, as well as greater research grants and joint faculty appointments than either campus has been able to accomplish on its own. According to The National Science Foundation, the university spends over $1.1 billion on research and development, ranking it very highly in the nation. The operating budget of the University of Maryland is over $2.2 billion.
On March 6, 1856, the forerunner of today’s University of Maryland was chartered as the Maryland Agricultural College. Two years later, Charles Benedict Calvert (1808–1864), a future U.S. Representative (Congressman) from the sixth congressional district of Maryland, 1861–1863, during the American Civil War and descendant of the first Lord Baltimores, colonial proprietors of the Province of Maryland in 1634, purchased 420 acres (1.7 km^2) of the Riversdale Mansion estate nearby today’s College Park, Maryland. Later that year, Calvert founded the school and was the acting president from 1859 to 1860. On October 5, 1859, the first 34 students entered the Maryland Agricultural College. The school became a land grant college in February 1864.
Following the Civil War, in February 1866, the Maryland legislature assumed half ownership of the school. The college thus became in part a state institution. By October 1867, the school reopened with 11 students. In 1868, the former Confederate admiral Franklin Buchanan was appointed President of the school, and in his tenure of just over a year, he reorganized it, established a system of strict economy in its business transactions, applied some of its revenues for the paying off of its debts, raised its standards, and attracted patrons through his personal influence: enrollment grew to 80 at the time of his resignation, and the school’s debt was soon paid off. In 1873, Samuel Jones, a former Confederate Major General, became president of the college.
Twenty years later, the federally funded Agricultural Experiment Station was established there. During the same period, state laws granted the college regulatory powers in several areas—including controlling farm disease, inspecting feed, establishing a state weather bureau and geological survey, and housing the board of forestry. Morrill Hall (the oldest instructional building still in use on campus) was built the following year.
The state took control of the school in 1916, and the institution was renamed Maryland State College. That year, the first female students enrolled at the school. On April 9, 1920, the college became part of the existing University of Maryland, replacing St. John’s College, Annapolis as the university’s undergraduate campus. In the same year, the graduate school on the College Park campus awarded its first PhD degrees and the university’s enrollment reached 500 students. In 1925 the university was accredited by The Association of American Universities.
By the time the first black students enrolled at the university in 1951, enrollment had grown to nearly 10,000 students—4,000 of whom were women. Prior to 1951, many black students in Maryland were enrolled at The University of Maryland-Eastern Shore.
In 1957, President Wilson H. Elkins made a push to increase academic standards at the university. His efforts resulted in the creation of one of the first Academic Probation Plans. The first year the plan went into effect, 1,550 students (18% of the total student body) faced expulsion.
On October 19, 1957, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom attended her first and only college football game at the University of Maryland after expressing interest in seeing a typical American sport during her first tour of the United States. The Maryland Terrapins beat the North Carolina Tar Heels 21 to 7 in the historical game now referred to as “The Queen’s Game”.
Phi Beta Kappa established a chapter at UMD in 1964. In 1969, the university was elected to The Association of American Universities. The school continued to grow, and by the fall of 1985 reached an enrollment of 38,679. Like many colleges during the Vietnam War, the university was the site of student protests and had curfews enforced by the National Guard.
In a massive restructuring of the state’s higher education system in 1988, the school was designated as the flagship campus of the newly formed University of Maryland System (later changed to the University System of Maryland in 1997), and was formally named the University of Maryland-College Park. All of the five campuses in the former network were designated as distinct campuses in the new system. However, in 1997 the Maryland General Assembly passed legislation allowing the University of Maryland-College Park to be known simply as The University of Maryland, recognizing the campus’ role as the flagship institution of the University System of Maryland.
The other University System of Maryland institutions with the name “University of Maryland” are not satellite campuses of the University of Maryland-College Park. The University of Maryland-Baltimore, is the only other school permitted to confer certain degrees from the “University of Maryland”.
In 1994, the National Archives at College Park completed construction and opened on a parcel of land adjoining campus donated by the University of Maryland, after lobbying by President William Kirwan and congressional leaders to foster academic collaboration between the institutions.
In 2004, the university began constructing the 150-acre (61 ha) “M Square Research Park,” which includes facilities affiliated with The Department of Defense , Food and Drug Administration, and the new National Center for Weather and Climate Prediction, affiliated with The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In May 2010, ground was broken on a new $128-million, 158,068-square-foot (14,685.0 m^2) Physical Science Complex, including an advanced quantum science laboratory.
The university’s Great Expectations campaign from 2006 to 2012 exceeded $1 billion in private donations.
The university suffered multiple data breaches in 2014. The first resulted in the loss of over 300,000 student and faculty records. A second data breach occurred several months later. The second breach was investigated by the FBI and Secret Service and found to be done by David Helkowski. Despite the attribution, no charges were filed. As a result of the data breaches, the university offered free credit protection for five years to the students and faculty affected.
In 2012, the University of Maryland-College Park and the University of Maryland- Baltimore united under the MPowering the State initiative to leverage the strengths of both institutions. The University of Maryland Strategic Partnership Act of 2016 officially formalized this partnership.
The University of Maryland’s University District Plan, developed in 2011 under President Wallace Loh and the College Park City Council, seeks to make the City of College Park a top 20 college town by 2020 by improving housing and development, transportation, public safety, local pre-K–12 education, and supporting sustainability projects. As of 2018, the university is involved with over 30 projects and 1.5 million square feet of development as part of its Greater College Park Initiative, worth over $1 billion in public-private investments. The university’s vision is to revitalize the campus to foster a dynamic and innovative academic environment, as well as to collaborate with the surrounding neighborhoods and local government to create a vibrant downtown community for students and faculty
In October 2017, the university received a record-breaking donation of $219.5 million from the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation, ranking among the largest philanthropic gifts to a public university in the country.
As of February 12, 2020, it was announced that Darryll J. Pines will be the 34th President of the University of Maryland-College Park. Darryll J. Pines is the dean of the A. James Clark School of Engineering and the Nariman Farvardin Professor of Aerospace Engineering since January 2009. Darryll J. Pines has been with the University of Maryland College Park for 25 years since he arrived in 1995 and started as an assistant professor.
In 2021, the university announced it had achieved its record goal of $1.5 billion raised in donations since 2018 as part of its Fearless Ideas: The Campaign for Maryland for investments in faculty, students, research, scholarships, and capital projects.
The university hosts “living-learning” programs which allow students with similar academic interests to live in the same residential community, take specialized courses, and perform research in those areas of expertise. An example is the Honors College, which is geared towards undergraduate students meeting high academic requirements and consists of several of the university’s honors programs. The Honors College welcomes students into a community of faculty and undergraduates. The Honors College offers seven living and learning programs: Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students, Design Cultures and Creativity, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Honors Humanities, Gemstone, Integrated Life Sciences, and University Honors.
Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students (ACES), started in 2013, is run by faculty and graduate students. ACES students are housed in Prince Frederick Hall and take a 14 credit, two-year curriculum that educates future leaders in the field of cybersecurity. ACES also offers a complementary two-year minor in cybersecurity.
Design Cultures and Creativity (DCC), started in 2009, is run by faculty and graduate students. The DCC program encourages students to explore the relationship between emerging media, society, and creative practices. DCC students are housed in Prince Frederick residence hall together and take a 16 credit, two-year interdisciplinary curriculum which culminates in a capstone.
Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program (EIP) is a living and learning program for Honors College freshmen and sophomores, helping build entrepreneurial mindsets, skill sets, and relationships for the development of solutions to today’s problems. Through learning, courses, seminars, workshops, competitions, and volunteerism, students receive an education in entrepreneurship and innovation. In collaboration with faculty and mentors who have launched new ventures, all student teams develop an innovative idea and write a product plan.
Honors Humanities is the honors program for beginning undergraduates with interests in the humanities and creative arts. The selective two-year living-learning program combines a small liberal arts college environment with the resources of a large research university.
Gemstone is a multidisciplinary four-year research program for select undergraduate honors students of all majors. Under guidance of faculty mentors and Gemstone staff, teams of students design, direct and conduct research, exploring the interdependence of science and technology with society.
Integrated Life Sciences (ILS) is the honors program for students interested in all aspects of biological research and biomedicine. The College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences has partnered with the Honors College to create the ILS program, which offers nationally recognized innovations in the multidisciplinary training of life science and pre-medical students. The objective of the ILS experience is to prepare students for success in graduate, medical, dental, or other professional schools.
University Honors (UH) is the largest living-learning program in the Honors College and allows students the greatest independence in shaping their education. University Honors students are placed into a close-knit community of the university’s faculty and other undergraduates, committed to acquiring a broad and balanced education. Students choose from over 130 seminars exploring interdisciplinary topics in three broad areas: Contemporary Issues and Challenges, Arts and Sciences in Today’s World, and Using the World as a Classroom.
The College Park Scholars programs are two-year living-learning programs for first- and second-year students. Students are selected to enroll in one of 12 thematic programs: Arts; Business, Society, and the Economy; Environment, Technology, and Economy; Global Public Health; International Studies; Life Sciences; Media, Self, and Society; Public Leadership; Science and Global Change; Science, Discovery, and the Universe; Science, Technology, and Society. Students live in dormitories in the Cambridge Community on North Campus.
The nation’s first living-learning entrepreneurship program, Hinman CEOs, is geared toward students who are interested in starting their own business. Students from all academic disciplines live together and are provided the resources to explore business ventures.
The QUEST (Quality Enhancement Systems and Teams) Honors Fellows Program engages undergraduate students from business, engineering, and computer, mathematical, and physical sciences. QUEST Students participate in courses focused on cross-functional collaboration, innovation, quality management, and teamwork. The Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering (CEE) has also been long considered an outstanding engineering division of the university since its inception in 1908.
Other living-learning programs include: CIVICUS, a two-year program in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences based on the five principles of civil society; Global Communities, a program that immerses students in a diverse culture (students from all over the world live in a community), and the Language House, which allows students pursuing language courses to live and practice with other students learning the same language.
The Mock Trial Team engages in intercollegiate mock trial competition. The team, which first began competing in 1990, has won five national championships (2008, 2000, 1998, 1996, 1992), which ranks the most of any university, and was also the national runner-up in 1992 and 1993.
Research
On October 14, 2004, the university added 150 acres (61 ha) in an attempt to create the largest research park inside the Washington, D.C., Capital Beltway, formerly known as “M Square,” and now known as the “Discovery District”.
Many of the faculty members have funding from federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, NASA, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the National Security Agency. These relationships have created numerous research opportunities for the university including:
Taking the lead in the nationwide research initiative into the transmission and prevention of human and avian influenza.
Creating a new research center to study the behavioral and social foundations of terrorism with funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Launching the joint NASA-University of Maryland Deep Impact spacecraft in early January 2005.
The University of Maryland Libraries provide access to scholarly information resources required to meet the missions of the university.
The University of Maryland is an international center for the study of language, hosting the largest community of language scientists in North America, including more than 200 faculty, researchers, and graduate students, who collectively comprise the Maryland Language Science Center. Since 2008 the university has hosted an NSF-IGERT interdisciplinary graduate training program that has served as a catalyst for broader integrative efforts in language science, with 50 participating students and contributions from 50 faculty. The University of Maryland is also home to two key ‘migrator’ centers that connect basic research to critical national needs in education and national security: the Center for Advanced Study of Language (CASL) and the National Foreign Language Center.
The Center for American Politics and Citizenship provides citizens and policy-makers with research on issues related to the United States’ political institutions, processes, and policies. CAPC is a non-partisan, non-profit research institution within the Department of Government and Politics in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences.
The Space Systems Laboratory researches human-robotic interaction for astronautics applications, and includes the only neutral buoyancy facility at a university.
The Joint Quantum Institute conducts theoretical and experimental research on quantum and atomic physics. The institute was founded in 2006 as a collaboration between the University of Maryland and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The Center for Technology and Systems Management (CTSM) aims to advance the state of technology and systems analysis for the benefit of people and the environment. The focus is on enhancing safety, efficiency and effectiveness by performing reliability, risk, uncertainty or decision analysis studies.
The Joint Global Change Research Institute was formed in 2001 by the University of Maryland and the DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The institute focuses on multidisciplinary approaches of climate change research.
The Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE) was formed in 1985 at the University of Maryland. CALCE is dedicated to providing a knowledge and resource base to support the development of electronic components, products and systems.
The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) launched in 2005 as one of the Centers of Excellence supported by the Department of Homeland Security in the United States. START is focused on the scientific study of the causes and consequences of terrorism in the United States and around the world.
The university is ranked very highly by U.S. News & World Report’s rankings of “National Universities” across the United States, and it is ranked very highly nationally among public universities. The Academic Ranking of World Universities ranks Maryland very highly in the world. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings placed Maryland very high in the world. The QS World University Rankings also ranked Maryland very high in the world.
The university has been ranked very highly among Peace Corps’ Top Volunteer-Producing Colleges. The University of Maryland is ranked among Teach for America’s Top 20 Colleges and Universities. Kiplinger’s Personal Finance has ranked the University very highly for in-state students and for out-of-state students in its Best College Value ranking. Money Magazine ranked the university 1st in the state of Maryland for public colleges in its Best College for Your Money ranking.
The university has been ranked very highly in the U.S. for the number of Boren Scholarship recipients – with some students receiving awards for intensive international language study. The university has been ranked as a Top Producing Institution of Fulbright U.S. Students and Scholars by the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
The University of Maryland has been ranked among the top 50 universities in the Best Global Universities Rankings by U.S. News & World Report based on its high academic research performance and global reputation.
The university has been ranked very highly in The Princeton Review’s annual survey of the Top Schools for Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
WMUC-FM (88.1 FM) is the university non-commercial radio station, staffed by UMD students and volunteers. WMUC is a freeform radio station that broadcasts at 10 watts. Its broadcasts can be heard throughout the Washington metropolitan area. Notable WMUC alumni include Connie Chung, Bonnie Bernstein, Peter Rosenberg and Aaron McGruder.