Oversea School Certificate, University of Cambridge (U.K.), 1951
B.Sc., St. Xavier's College, 1957
M.S., University of Wisconsin at Madison, 1966
Ph.D., University of North Dakota School of Medicine, 1972

Frederick Alvares, Ph.D., joined St. Mary's University in 1988 after an already accomplished career. After earning his doctorate degree he served as a research fellow at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in the Institute of Enzyme Research. He later served on the faculty of the University of North Dakota School of Medicine as a Research Associate, and was a NIH/NRSA Research Fellowship Awardee at Stanford University, School of Medicine. Alvares also served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Wyoming, Laramie (1985-1986) and was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Delaware, Newark (1986-1987).

Alvares developed the undergraduate major in Biochemistry at St. Mary's University, and instituted the Advanced Biochemistry course series in 1991. He continues to teach all five courses on a four-semester rotational basis.

Alvares is also an Adjunct Full Professor in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He has also published extensively, including three full length papers in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. His research pioneered the elucidation of the biochemical and physiological significance of the phosphotransferase activities of the multifunctional membrane-bound enzyme, glucose-6-phosphatase. He has presented his research in poster presentations and symposia at national meetings of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the American Institute of Nutrition. Other research, in collaboration with and hosted by Russel J. Reiter, Ph.D., focuses on the relationship between the pineal hormone melatonin and the activities of the enzymes of gluconeogenesis: phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase and the multifunctional enzyme, glucose-6-phosphatase.

B.S., National University of Uzbekistan, 2005
Ph.D., Bowling Green State University, 2011

During the last semester of his graduate studies Dmitriy Khon, Ph.D., taught as an adjunct instructor at Bowling Green State University Firelands Campus. After earning his doctorate, Khon was an adjunct instructor at Owens Community College in Toledo, Ohio during summer 2011. He then served as a visiting assistant professor at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota from 2011-2012. Khon joined the faculty at St. Mary's in 2012 and is responsible for teaching Organic chemistry.

Khon's research interests are in the fields of nanochemistry and organic synthesis. His graduate studies involved synthesis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and plasmon-exciton interaction in metal-semiconductor nanocomposites. He designed and synthesized nanocomposites of different morphologies to study the interaction of exciton of semiconductor and metal plasmon and its dependence on spatial separation.

His current research projects involve design and synthesis of semiconductor nanocrystal films for flexible Light Emitting Diodes (LED's) and Photovoltaics.

B.A., Rhode Island College, 1984
Ph.D., University of Massachusetts-Lowell, 1992

After earning his doctorate, Michael D. Losiewicz, Ph.D., was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the National Cancer Institute, in the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Md., from 1992 to 1998. In this position his research focused on cyclin dependant kinases and signal regulated kinases of the MAP family as potential targets for anti-cancer drugs. He routinely presented this research at the annual meetings of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). Losiewicz also authored several papers on these studies. His research interests remain in the area of cancer drug targeting.

After serving as a guest professor for a year at a small college outside of New York City, Losiewicz joined St. Mary's in August 1999. He teaches several different lecture and laboratory courses in the Department of Chemistry/Biochemistry. Besides his teaching, he is also the faculty advisor to the American Chemical Society of Students (ACSS), the student chemistry organization which welcomes students of all majors.

B.S., University of Sacred Heart, 2002
M.S., University of Iowa, 2004
Ph.D., University of Iowa, 2008

Jose Tormos Melendez, Ph.D., received his bachelor's in Chemistry from the University of Sacred Heart in San Juan, Puerto Rico. During his years as an undergraduate he worked as a REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) student in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Puerto Rico - Rio Piedras isolating and analyzing soil samples that contain novel fatty acids with potential medicinal applications. After graduation he worked in the Chemical Technology Division at Argonne National Laboratories in Chicago, IL.

Tormos Melendez obtained his master's and doctorate from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Iowa. His research involved using enzyme kinetics and isotope effects with UV-Vis spectrophotometry to demonstrate the accumulation of a tetrahedral intermediate in the active site of the enzymes acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme found in the neuromuscular junction; and butyrylcholinesterase, an enzyme that has been the target of several nerve agents.

As a post-doctoral research fellow, Tormos Melendez worked in the research laboratory of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio where he was able to establish that an enzyme from P. anserina is a nitroalkane oxidase, upgrading the protein from its original classification as hypothetical. He has also used site-directed mutagenesis and enzyme kinetics to determine the structure and the role of specific residues in substrate binding and specificity for the mammalian enzyme polyamine oxidase.

Tormos Melendez's current research involves the use of X-ray crystallography to obtain the first mammalian crystal structure of the enzyme polyamine oxidase and further study of the structural and binding differences among the different polyamine oxidase enzymes.

Selected Publications

Tormos, J. R., Henderson Pozzi, M. and Fitzpatrick, P. F. Arch. of Biochem. and Biophys.; 2012; (In press). "Mechanistic Studies of Mammalian Polyamine Oxidase: Role of Histidine 64".

Tormos, J. R. Taylor, A. B., Colette, S. B., Hart, P. J. and Fitzptrick, P. F. Biochemistry; 2010; 49 (24), 5035 - 5041. "Identification of a Hypothetical Protein from Podospora anserina as a Nitroalkane Oxidase".

Tormos, J. R., Wiley, K. L., Wang, Y., Fournier, D., Masson, P., Nachon, P. and Quinn, D. M. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2010; 132 (50), 17751 - 17759. "Accumulation of Tetrahedral Intermediates in Cholinesterase Catalysis: A Secondary Isotope Effect Study".

Wiley, K. L, Tormos, J. R. and Quinn, D. M. Chem-Biol Interact; 2010; 187 (1 - 3), 124 - 127. "A secondary isotope effect study of equine serum butyrylcholinesterase-catalyzed hydrolysis of acetylthiocholine".

Tormos, J. R., Wiley, K. L., Seravalli, J., Nachon, F., Masson, P., Nicolet, Y., Quinn, D. M. J. Am. Chem. Soc.; (Communication); 2005; 127, 14538 -14539. "The Reactant State for Substrate-Activated Turnover of Acetylthiocholine by Butyrylcholinesterase is a Tetrahedral Intermediate".

B.S., Davidson College, 1998
Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2003

After earning her doctorate, Susan P. Oxley, Ph.D., was a postdoctoral research associate and visiting faculty member at Trinity University in San Antonio from 2004-2007. Oxley joined the faculty at St. Mary's in 2007, and is responsible for teaching general chemistry, analytical chemistry and instrumental analysis.

Oxley's research interests are in the general field of surface chemistry. Her graduate studies involved generating and characterizing surface composition gradients by the electrochemical control of self-assembled monolayers on gold. She characterized the gradients using surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy. She also modified thiol gradients with the extracellular matrix protein fibronectin for studies of cell motility.

At Trinity University, Oxley studied thin films ( ~1 µm thick) of low-temperature molecular solids using infrared spectroscopy. She studied the isotopic exchange of H2O and D2O on the surface of ice and hydrogen-bonding in mixtures of H2S and D2S at 70 K. At St. Mary's, Oxley has an ongoing project studying the affect of surface confinement on the acid/base properties of thiol molecules.

B.S., University of California Davis, 1981
Ph.D., Arizona State University, 1988

After earning his doctorate, Jeff R. Schoonover, Ph.D., held a research and teaching post-doctoral fellowship at Arizona State University. He later held the position of Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Moorehead State University, Ky., for two years. Schoonover joined the faculty at St. Mary's University in 1992.

Schoonover's primary teaching duties are General Chemistry and Physical Chemistry. However, he is also available on demand to teach special topics (Physical Biochemistry, Quantum Chemistry and Spectroscopy, Computational Chemistry and Solid State Chemistry), CH 4330 (Statistical Thermodynamics) and CH 4340 (Advanced Inorganic Chemistry). He is always interested in working with students on projects or undergraduate research.

Schoonover’s primary area of research is Chemical Education. However, his research background and interests (as time allows) include theoretical chemistry, non-linear kinetics, solid state reaction kinetics and mechanisms, solid-solid phase transformations, ceramic materials preparation and processing, thermodynamics of solid solutions, and spectroscopy of rare earth compounds.