For the third year in a row, UGA’s Graduate School has honored an outstanding doctoral student in the Department of Chemistry with a Beverly Hirsh Frank Graduate Fellowship for Women in Science. Ellen Broering is the 2015 recipient of this award, which provides special recognition of her research. Ellen joined Dr. Todd Harrop’s group in the spring semester of 2012. Her research focuses on the synthetic modeling of the nickel form of superoxide dismutase (NiSOD). SODs are metalloenzymes crucial in the detoxification of oxygen-based radicals and have been implicated in a variety of human disease states. However, NiSOD is the outlier in the SOD family of enzymes utilizing the Ni(III/II) couple in an unusual coordination environment. Ni-enzymes catalyze some of the most crucial redox reactions on this planet that are relevant to alternative energy (hydrogenase), the environment (CO dehydrogenase) and free radical detoxification (SOD). In this regard, Ellen has synthesized several molecules that address this redox activity. Utilizing a carefully designed ligand construct, she has been able to access Ni(III)-S complexes that are isolable and do not result in S-ligand degradation. Based on this work (published recently in Inorganic Chemistry; see Inorg. Chem. 2015, 54, 3815-3828), we believe that redox activity in Ni-enzymes is actually more delocalized across Ni-thiolate bonds in nature. In addition to this paper, Ellen has co-authored a ‘Current Trend’ paper in Biochemistry (see Biochemistry 2013, 52, 4-18) – a first for the Harrop group as synthetic chemists don’t usually publish in the biological literature. She was also an invited speaker at the 2014 ‘Bioinorganic Chemistry’ Gordon Research Seminar. Ellen has been quite successful in both aspects of her graduate student responsibilities (teaching and research), which is rare. For example, Ellen has been recognized as an exemplary TA. She has been awarded the UGA Department of Chemistry Kenneth W. Whitten Award a total of three times, which recognizes the best TAs in our department based on chemistry faculty and student recommendations. Most recently, she was awarded the UGA Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award from the UGA Center for Teaching and Learning, an award that recognizes the top 10% of TAs serving the university as a whole. This degree of productivity and recognition speaks to Ellen’s motivation, hard work, and dedication. Ellen received her Bachelor's degree in Chemistry and Spanish from Spring Hill College (Mobile, AL) in 2010. Ellen plans on becoming a faculty member at a PUI/PUC after graduation from UGA. Beverly Hirsh Frank (AB, '54) is the generous benefactor of this fellowship and other activities at her alma mater.
