Department of Chemistry
The City College of New York-CUNY


News & Highlights
(Selected)
Scientific American on May 2, 2008 in the news, “A Silver Coating in the Fight against Microbes”.

The New York Times on April 9, 2008 in Technology Innovation, “Harnessing Biology, and Avoiding Oil, for Chemical Goods”.

Prof. John featured in ‘Mathrubhumi’, National Newspaper, India on March 09, 2008.
 

People

Professor George John
Professor George John received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from University of Kerala, India in 1993. After a year of post-doctoral stay at the University of Twente, The Netherlands, he spent four years as a research scientist at the Agency for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan. In the fall of 2002 he joined the Rensselaer Nanotechnology Center as a research faculty and pursued his research interests in the area of soft nanomaterials. Currently he is Associate Professor of Chemistry at the City College of the City University of New York, New York. His current research includes biobased organic synthesis, self-assembled soft materials (vesicles, liquid crystals, helices, tubes and gel systems) for functional applications, understanding growth mechanisms of nanostructures and designing new structures and multifunctional nanocomposites.
Email: john@sci.ccny.cuny.edu

PRESENT MEMBERS -

Postdoctoral Fellows
Dr. Praveen Kumar Vemula
Dr. Praveen Kumar Vemula received his Ph.D degree under supervision of Prof. Santanu Bhattacharya in the Department of Organic Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He carried his research in the area of developing novel catalysts for decontamination reactions in various supramolecular nanoaggregates, detailed experimental and computational studies. He received his Ph.D. degree in 2005, currently he is a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. George John’s laboratory at the City College of New York, City University of New York, New York. His current research interests includes design and developing novel self-assembled soft nanomaterials from renewable resources, Molecular Gels and Drug-Delivery, liquid crystals, metal Nanoparticles: Synthesis and Catalysis and organic-inorganic hybrid materials (recently moved to MIT).
Email: praveen@sci.ccny.cuny.edu
Dr. Jyothish Kuthanapillil
Dr. Jyothish Kuthanapillil was born in Kerala, India in 1980. He obtained the M.Sc. degree in Chemistry (2002) from the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala and Ph.D. degree (2008) from the University of Kerala, Trivandrum. He worked for his Ph.D. degree on synthesis, photophysical and photobiological properties of quinoline based squaraine dyes for photodynamic therapy under the supervision of Dr. D. Ramaiah at the Photosciences and Photonics Section of the National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (Formerly, Regional Research Laboratory, CSIR), Trivandrum, India. Currently he is a post-doctoral fellow in Prof. George John’s laboratory at The City College of New York. His research interests include study of organic reactions, design and development of sensitizers for photodynamic therapeutical applications and nanoparticle embedded functional soft materials.

Graduate Students
Swapnil Jadhav
Swapnil Jadhav completed his Bachelor of Technology from India. Presently pursuing his graduation under supervision of Prof. George John, City College of New York. His research interests are in the design and development of novel biosurfactants as hydro/organo gelators and studying their self-assembly properties.
Email: sjadhav@gc.cuny.edu

Master Students
Gregory A. Cruikshank
BS Chemistry 1999, Western Washington University MA Chemistry 2007, City College of New York Currently Managing Analytical Core Facility at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Colleen Achong
Colleen Achong completed her bachelors degree in Biochemistry at the City College in 2007. Currently she is a Masters Degree student and completing her research project on small Molecular Gels and Drug-Delivery. She has won many awards including THREE times best POSTER AWARD for the research presentations at national and local conferences. She has been selected as a spotlight speaker at the New York Academy of Sciences annual meeting on Soft Matter in April 2008

Jae Seong Shim
Jaeseong Shim received B. E from Keimyung Univ, in Korea. Shim has completed his Masters degree under the supervision of Prof. John. Currently employed at SK Pharmaceuticals, South Korea, 2008.

Undergraduates
Kareem Douglas
Undergraduate senior in the Chemical Engineering Department
Currently admitted to the Masters Program at MIT.
Horace W. Goldsmith Scholar.
  Eric Hong
Sophomore and a chemistry major at CCNY Best student award, Department of Chemistry.
Sandra Martinez
Sophomore and a chemistry major at CCNY.
   

Former Members
Dr. V. Ajay Mallia
Research Associate
Currently a research associate
at Georgetown University, DC.
  Unaiza Aslam
Undergraduate
Currently employed
.
Kujtim Bizati
Undergraduate
Currently employed at Momentive
Performance Materials Inc., New York.
  Phyllis Thankam
High School Student
Currently at Yale University
as an Undergraduate student.


 
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Department of Chemistry | Division of Science | The City College of New York | Graduate Center of CUNY | CUNY
© 2008 George John's Soft Materials Research Group.