Executive Committee

William D. Jones, PhD

PhotoROC Director
University of Rochester

William D. Jones was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1953, and was inspired to work in inorganic chemistry as an undergraduate researcher with Mark S. Wrighton at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS, 1975). He obtained a PhD degree in chemistry at California Institute of Technology (1979), working with Robert G. Bergman and completing his final year at Berkeley.  He moved to the University of Wisconsin as a NSF Postdoctoral Fellow with ACS President-elect Chuck Casey. In 1980 he accepted a position as Assistant Professor at the University of Rochester. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1984 and Professor in 1987, and is now the Charles F. Houghton Professor of Chemistry. Professor Jones is the author of over 221 publications in scientific journals. Professor Jones' research has involved the study of transition metal organometallic compounds for the cleavage of strong carbon-element bonds, such as carbon-hydrogen, carbon-carbon, and carbon-sulfur bonds.  One area that has been developed involves the discovery of complexes that can activate C-H bonds of the unreactive aromatic and aliphatic hydrocarbons found in petroleum under mild conditions.  Another is the hydrodesulfurization of petroleum using complexes of nickel and rhodium, in which a simple method to remove sulfur from oil has been discovered.  He has received several awards, including an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (1984), a Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar Award (1985), a Royal Society Guest Research Fellowship (1988), a Fulbright-Hays Scholar (1988), a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow (1988), the ACS Award in Organometallic Chemistry (2003), and the ACS Cope Scholar Award (2009). Professor Jones was recently elected to be a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (2010) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2009). Beginning in 2003, he continues to serve as an Associate Editor for the Journal of American Chemical Society. Professor Jones served as the Chair of the Department of Chemistry at the University from 2000-2003, and was selected to receive the Edward Peck Curtis Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from the University of Rochester in 2009.

Lewis J. Rothberg, PhD

PhotoROC Associate Director
University of Rochester

Lewis J. Rothberg received his BS in Physics (Magna cum Laude) at the University of Rochester in 1977. He obtained a PhD degree in physics at Harvard (1984), working with Nicholas Bloembergen. His thesis work involved studies of dephasing-induced four-wave mixing to verify the correct treatment of quantum mechanical damping in nonlinear optical processes.  From 1984-1996, Dr. Rothberg worked at AT&T and then Lucent Bell Laboratories on a variety of problems in soft condensed matter physics.  He became a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Bell Labs in 1994 and a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1996. In 1996 he accepted a position as a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Rochester, and in 1997 became Director of the NSF Center for Photoinduced Charge Transfer for three years.  His current appointments at the University of Rochester also include Professor of Physics, Professor of Chemical Engineering, and Professor of Biophysics and Structural Biology.  In 2013, he became Director of the multidisciplinary Materials Science program, which has faculty and student participants from eleven departments in science and engineering.

Professor Rothberg is the author of over 160 peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals and has 7 granted US patents, mostly in areas related to organic electronics. He has made seminal contributions to the understanding of the spectroscopy and photophysics of conjugated polymers(CP’s).  These quasi-one-dimensional semiconducting materials are of interest for their potential in fabricating inexpensive organic electronic devices such as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) for display technology and solid-state lighting, biomolecular fluorescent tags, photopumped film lasers and thin-film photovoltaics for solar energy conversion. Professor Rothberg, who has been working in this field since the early eighties, is responsible for the first observation of stimulated emission in CP films; the initial assignment of interchain charge pair generation; the first systematic study of the effect of oxidation defects on the luminescence yield and decay dynamics in CPs; and the development of the highly successful two-chromophore model for understanding emission from CP films and solutions. He is also the Chief Technical Officer of Diffinity Genomics, a biotechnology start-up based on technology developed in his lab at the University of Rochester.

Professor Rothberg has collaborated with colleagues from the UR, other universities, National Labs and industry partners, such as Eastman Kodak and Xerox. He has been a thesis advisor to sixteen Ph.D. students and has sponsored 4 postdoctoral fellows. He is very active in providing research opportunities to undergraduates and high school students and participates in outreach activities for the public.

Calvin Uzelmeier, PhD

Director of Education at Rochester Museum & Science Center
PhotoROC outreach to the public and communications training

Calvin Uzelmeier, PhD, is a lead partner in PhotoRoc’s outreach program. As Director of Education at the Rochester Museum and Science Center (RMSC), he leads the Museum’s educational initiatives for both school and general-public audiences and manages a talented group of 200 staff and volunteers involved in its various science programs and experiences. These include programs such as scout classes, school field trips and programs, community outreach, live science shows, the RMSC preschool, museum overnights, visitor programs, and adult classes. Uzelmeier also contributes to the creation of exhibits as a science-content specialist. With experience in government, industrial and academic research settings, Uzelmeier has more than 20 years of experience in both formal and informal science education settings, including exhibit development and program delivery for grades P-16. He has taught Chemistry as an adjunct faculty at Monroe Community College, Nazareth College, and the University of Rochester. In addition to his graduate research in materials science, Uzelmeier has worked as a chemical researcher with Rohm & Haas Chemical Company, and the Department of Energy at Oak Ridge National Laboratories. He has served as a science education consultant for Time Publications "Find Out Why" Magazines for children, and Disney Animation for their Saturday morning cartoon series.

Beth A. Olivares, PhD

University of Rochester
Dean for Diversity - assessment and broadening participation

Beth Olivares, PhD, a key member of the PhotoROC Executive Committee, is dean for diversity initiatives in Arts, Sciences & Engineering at the University of Rochester. She also serves as director of the David T. Kearns Center for Leadership and Diversity, and as a faculty development and diversity officer. Since joining UR in 1994, Olivares has expanded University diversity initiatives, developing educational pipeline programs for underrepresented minority (URM), low income and first generation to college students from middle school through the doctoral degree. In the past decade, the Kearns Center has garnered over $10 million in external funding for its various programs; currently, over 1000 high school, undergraduate and graduate students are being served by the University’s Upward Bound, Upward Bound Math/Science, two College Prep Centers located in the Rochester City School District, and the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program. The Center also houses the Xerox Scholars program for engineering students. In addition to providing academic services, Olivares helps coordinate URM graduate student recruitment and retention/assessment efforts, particularly in STEM disciplines. Among her many honors, in 2009 Olivares was elected president of the Association for Equality and Excellence in Education, has served on the board of directors of the Council for Opportunity in Education, and has been appointed to the Minority Graduate Education Committee of the GRE Board. Most recently in 2015 she was one of 15 recipients of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) honored at the White House by President Obama.