James McCormick
Associate Professor of Chemistry
Department of Chemistry
Truman State University
Kirksville, MO 63501
(660) 785-4315
(660) 785-4045 (fax)
jmccormi@truman.edu
For Dr. McCormick's "other" homepage, go here.
Education
- B.S., Saint Lawrence University, New York
- Ph.D., Stanford University
- NIH Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Berkeley
- Humboldt Fellow, University of the Ruhr
Courses Taught
- Chemistry for Contemporary Living
- Chemical Principles I
- Chemical Principles II
- Physical Chemistry I
- Physical Chemistry II
- Physical Chemistry Laboratory I
- Physical Chemistry Laboratory II
- Inorganic Chemistry I
- Inorganic Chemistry II
- Sophomore Chemistry Seminar
- Junior Chemistry Seminar
Research Interests
Dr. McCormick's research is very cross-disciplinary involving aspects of inorganic, organic, analytical and physical chemistry. While it is primarily directed toward understanding the chemical reactions of metal ion coordination complexes (physical inorganic, analytical) there is a major synthesis component (organic, inorganic). Depending on a student’s interest, he or she could pursue research that is purely synthetic, purely physical or some combination of the two.
Two projects are currently available. One explores the role of the lone pair of electrons in the chemical reactions of main-group metal ion coordination complexes. VSEPR theory predicts that a lone-pair in main-group metal complexes occupies a site in the coordination sphere about the metal (said to be stereochemically active), but recent work has shown this is not always the case. The questions that need to be answered are: what leads the lone pair to be stereochemically active? can this be quantified? and does the stereochemical activity of the lone pair affect the chemical reactions that these complexes undergo? The implications of this work are far-reaching, ranging from a deeper understanding of the toxicity of these metals in vivo to explaining the properties of semiconductors that incorporate main-group metal ions. The second project is investigating the reactions of ozone (O3) with transition metal coordination complexes. The activation of oxygen by transition metal complexes for reaction with organic molecules is of fundamental importance in biochemistry and to industry. This process is, however, poorly understood. To gain insight into these reactions, O3 will be used to directly generate and study the intermediates believed to be important in the oxygen chemistry. Since O3 is a more powerful oxidant than O2 it is an attractive means to efficiently destroy toxic substances at moderate temperatures and pressures, additional effort will be directed toward the development of transition metal complex catalysts for these processes.