Peter Mahaffy Author

John C. Kotz is a retired State University of New York (SUNY) Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College at Oneonta. Educated at Washington and Lee University and Cornell University, he held National Institutes of Health postdoctoral appointments at the University of Manchester Institute for Science and Technology in England and at Indiana University. He has co-authored three textbooks in several editions: INORGANIC CHEMISTRY, CHEMISTRY & CHEMICAL REACTIVITY and THE CHEMICAL WORLD. He has also published research on inorganic chemistry and electrochemistry. Professor Kotz was a Fulbright Lecturer and Research Scholar in Portugal in 1979 and a visiting professor there in 1992, as well as a visiting professor at the Institute for Chemical Education (University of Wisconsin, 1991-1992) and at Auckland University in New Zealand (1999). He was an invited speaker on chemical education at conferences in South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina and Brazil. Finally, he was a mentor for the U.S. National Chemistry Olympiad Team for four years. He has received numerous honors, including a SUNY Chancellor's Award (1979), a National Catalyst Award for Excellence in Teaching (1992), the Estee Lectureship in Chemical Education at the University of South Dakota (1998), the Visiting Scientist Award from the Western Connecticut Section of the American Chemical Society (1999) and the first annual Distinguished Education Award from the Binghamton (New York) Section of the American Chemical Society (2001). John E. McMurry received his B.A. from Harvard University and his Ph.D. at Columbia University. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Foundation Fellow. He has received several awards, which include the National Institutes of Health Career Development Award, the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award, and the Max Planck Research Award. In addition to ORGANIC CHEMISTRY, he is also the author or coauthor of ORGANIC CHEMISTRY: A BIOLOGICAL APPROACH, FUNDAMENTALS OF ORGANIC CHEMISTRY, THE ORGANIC CHEMISTRY OF BIOLOGICAL PATHWAYS. With Peter Mahaffy's passion for helping undergraduate students and others see the intricate web that connects chemistry with so many other aspects of life, he has made innovative contributions to science education both in Canada and internationally. After receiving his Ph.D. in Physical Organic Chemistry from Indiana University, Mahaffy moved to Canada where he is now Professor of Chemistry at the King's University College in Edmonton, Alberta. Mahaffy collaborates regularly on research with undergraduate students, in the areas of chemistry education, visualization in science, organic chemistry, and environmental chemistry. In addition, he gives numerous chemistry presentations to students and teachers at all levels, and to the general public. He chairs IUPAC's Committee on Chemistry Education (CCE) and serves on international chemistry education advisory and editorial boards. Elected a fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada (CIC) in 1999, Mahaffy also received the CIC National Award for Chemistry Education in 2003, given as a mark of recognition for an outstanding contribution in Canada to education at the post-secondary level in the field of chemistry or chemical engineering. Following an undergraduate training at Queensland University, a PhD in inorganic chemistry from Otago University, and post-doc appointments at the Universities of Tasmania and Adelaide, Roy Tasker has been teaching first-year university students at the University of Western Sydney (UWS) since 1985. In the 1990s his research interest was in developing students¿ mental models of the molecular world for a deeper understanding of chemistry concepts. The result was an integrated suite of molecular-level animations in the VisChem project. Then, on a three-year secondment with CADRE design (a multimedia production company) he gained experience in nine interactive multimedia projects to complement and supplement textbooks in chemistry and biochemistry. Since 2000 his research group has developed and evaluated multimedia learning designs and the results have been applied in this textbook project. In 1999 he was awarded the inaugural UWS Award for Teaching Excellence, and in 2002 the Royal Australian Chemical Institute Chemical Education Division Medal. Most recently, Roy was recognized with the prestigious 2011 Prime Minister's University Teacher of the Year award. Bob Bucat is an Associate Professor in the Discipline of Chemistry, School of Biomedical, Biomolecular and Chemical Sciences at the University of Western Australia. After attaining a PhD in physical chemistry, he developed a passionate interest in the challenges of education in chemistry, and for some time his research interests have been in that field. Bob has been a titular member of the Committee on Teaching of Chemistry of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, and a member of the National Committee for Chemistry of the Australian Academy of Science. He was a winner in 1988 of the UWA 75th Anniversary Distinguished Teacher Award, and was the fifth recipient of the Medal of the Chemical Education Division of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute for contributions to education in chemistry.