• Teaching at a predominantly undergraduate institution is the best of all possible worlds. The balance of teaching and research available at Trinity allows me to work with students in the classroom and the laboratory, to share in their successes in both understanding the subject of chemistry and in making important contributions to it in research. The opportunity to be involved in an active research program informs my teaching. When I am forced to move into areas of chemistry with which I am not quite as familiar, I am reminded of the difficulties my students have when learning organic chemistry. My excitement about research and the pleasure in putting the pieces together gets transmitted to my teaching where I want to help my students put the pieces together to understand chemistry. It is the perfect synergy.

    • Ph.D., Univeristy of Arizona 
    • B.A., Grinnell College
    • N. S. Mills, F. E. Cheng; J. M. Baylan, C. Tirla, J. L. Hartmann, K.C. Patel, B. J. Dahl, S. P. McClintock, "Dications of 3-Phenyl-indenylidene dibenzo[a.d]cycloheptene: The role of charge in the antiaromaticity of cationic systems", Journal of Organic Chemistry, ASAP, 2010; J. Org. Chem. 2011, 76, 645–653.
    • C. Do*, J. Hatfield*, S. Patel*, D.Vasudevan, C. Tirla, and N. S. Mills, "Dications of benzylidenefluorene and diphenylmethylidene fluorene: The relationship between magnetic and energetic measures of antiaromaticity", Journal of Organic Chemistry, ASAP, 2010; J. Org. Chem. 2011, 76, 181–187.
    • B. J. Dahl, and N. S. Mills, "Antiaromaticity in distal bisfluorenyl dications separated by multiple discrete spacer units" Organic Letters, 2008, 10, 5605–5608.
    • A. M Piekarski,* N. S. Mills, and A.Yousef, "Dianion and dication of tetrabenzo[5.7]fulvalene. Greater antiaromaticity than aromaticity in comparable systems," Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2008, 130, 14883–14890.

    *indicates Trinity student

    • Organic Chemistry 
    • Forensic Chemistry 
    • Organic Chemistry Laboratory

    My community involvement is really with the larger chemistry community. I have served on the Committee on Professional Training of the American Chemical Society for a decade. Chemistry departments with exemplary programs can be approved by the American Chemical Society and the Committee oversees this approval process. Most recently, the Committee has been involved in completely revamping the chemistry curricula at these schools, with potentially far reaching consequences for the education of chemists.

    Previously I was actively involved in the Council on Undergraduate Research where I started the Mentor Network for the Chemistry Division. I have been involved in the Health Professions Advisory Committee since 1980; have served on the Faculty Development Committee, the Faculty Senate, the editorial board of the Trinity Press, Institutional Review Board, Integrated Marketing Committee and a variety of search and review committees.