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Chemistry - Faculty & Staff

Scott E. Feller

  • Professor of Chemistry
  • President of the College

Photo of Feller, Scott E.


Dr. Scott Feller is the Howell Professor of Chemistry and was appointed Dean of the College in 2014. Feller has been named the College’s McLain-McTurnan-Arnold Excellence in Teaching Award Winner for 2009 and has chaired both Division I and the Department of Chemistry at Wabash. Feller has received many grants for research in the area of membrane biophysics. Feller often conducts his research with the students he teaches, many of who have gone on to pursue advanced degrees in the chemical sciences.

Feller is a graduate of Willamette University in Oregon and holds his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of California, Davis. He was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Whitman College before coming to Wabash. He lives with his family on a farm outside of Crawfordsville.


Education

Ph.D., Physical Chemistry, University of California, Davis. Dec 1993. Dissertation: Application of the Hypernetted Chain Approximation to the Electrical Double Layer. Advisor: Dr. Donald A. McQuarrie.
B.A., Major: Chemistry, Minor: Mathematics, Willamette University, May 1989.


Recent Course Offerings

CHE 101 - Survey of Chemistry
CHE 111 - General Chemistry
CHE 211 - Chemical Structure and Reactivity
CHE 351 - Physical Chemistry I
CHE 451 - Physical Chemistry II
CHE 452 - Advanced Physical Chemistry


Research

National Science Foundation. Title: MRI: Acquisition of a Computer Cluster for undergraduate Chemistry Research and Teaching by the Midwest Undergraduate Computational Chemistry Consortium (MU3C). Amount: $299,942. Period: 10/1/2010-9/30/2013. Co-PI with Krueger, Polik, Kuwata, & Kohen.

National Science Foundation. Title: RUI: Exploring Lipid Interactions Using Atomistic Models. Amount: $500,000. Period: 5/2010-5/2015.

National Science Foundation. Title: RUI: Atomistic Simulations of Lipid Bilayer Membranes. Amount: $268,252. Period: 5/2006-5/2010.

National Institutes of Health, Nanomedicine center (one of 10 co-P.I.’s). Title: National Center for the Design of Biomimetic Nanoconductors. Amount $6,500,000 ($188,681 for Wabash). Period 9/2005-9/2009.

Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award. Title: Computational studies of lipid-protein interactions. Amount $60,000. Period 9/2003-9/2008.

National Science Foundation, special grants program. Title: Examining student outcomes associated with undergraduate research participation at Wabash College. Amount $36,297. Period: 2001-2003.


Recent Presentations

“Roles for omega-3 fatty acids in the function of membrane proteins”, 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Chemical Society, San Francisco CA.

“Unique properties of polyunsaturated lipids and their interactions with membrane proteins”, Gordon Research Conference on Ion Channels, Tilton NH.

“Validating membrane simulations through comparison with NMR and X-ray scattering experiments”, 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Chicago IL.

“Interactions of omega-3 fatty acids with rhodopsin”, 2007 University of Delaware Membrane Protein Symposium, Newark, DE.

“Properties of lipids containing docosahexaenoic acid and their interactions with the integral membrane protein rhodopsin”, 2008 International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids, Kansas City MO.

“Structure and Dynamics of a Fluid Phase Bilayer on a Solid Support as Observed by a Molecular Dynamics Computer Simulation” 2009 ACS Colloid & Surface Science Symposium, Columbia University.

“Structure of a Lipidated ras Peptide Bound to a Phospholipid Bilayer” 2009 Telluride Science Center workshop on Membranes and membrane proteins: Challenges for theory and experiment.

“A Reinterpretation of Neutron Scattering Experiments on a Lipidated Ras Peptide Using Replica Exchange Molecular Dynamics” 2011 ACS Annual meeting, Anaheim CA.


Recent Publications

(* denotes student co-authors)

G. Khelashvili, A. Grossfield, S.E. Feller, M.C. Pitman, H. Weinstein, “Structural and dynamic effects of cholesterol at preferred sites of interaction with rhodopsin identified from microsecond length molecular dynamics simulations”, Proteins, 76:403-417 (2009).

M. Roark, SE Feller, “Molecular Dynamics Simulation Study of Correlated Motions in Phospholipid Bilayer Membranes”, J. Phys. Chem. B, 113: 13229-13234 (2009).

S.P. Soni, J.A. Ward*, S.E. Sen, S.E. Feller, S.R. Wassall, “Effect of Trans Unsaturation on Molecular Organization in a Phospholipid Membrane”, Biochemistry, 48: 11097-11107 (2009).

G.F. Salgado, A. Vogel, R. Marquant, S.E. Feller, S. Bouaziz, I.D. Alves, “The Role of Membranes in the Organization of HIV-1 Gag p6 and Vpr: p6 Shows High Affinity for Membrane Bilayers Which Substantially Increases the Interaction between p6 and Vpr”, J. Med. Chem., 52: 7157-7162 (2009).

A. Vogel, G. Reuther, M.B. Roark, K.T. Tan, H. Waldmann, S.E. Feller, D. Huster, “Backbone conformational flexibility of the lipid modified membrane anchor of the human N-Ras protein investigated by solid-state NMR and molecular dynamics simulation”, BBA-Biomembranes, 1798: 275-285 (2010).

S.R. Wassall, M.A. McCabe, C.D. Wassall, R.O. Adlof, S.E. Feller, “Solid-State H-2 NMR and MD Simulations of Positional Isomers of a Monounsaturated Phospholipid Membrane: Structural Implications of Double Bond Location”, J. Phys. Chem. B, 114: 11474-11483 (2010).

D.P. Hurst, A. Grossfield, D.L. Lynch, S. Feller, T.D. Romo, K. Gawrisch, M.C. Pitman, P.H. Reggio, “A Lipid Pathway for Ligand Binding Is Necessary for a Cannabinoid G Protein-coupled Receptor”, J. Biol. Chem., 285:17954-17964 (2010).


Honors & Awards

McLain-McTurnan-Arnold Excellence in Teaching Award, Wabash College, 2009.

Henry Dreyfus Teacher Scholar, Dreyfus Foundation, 2003-2008.

Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Chemical Research, given by Indiana University and Eli Lilly, 2001.

Scientific Achievement award for top research group (1 of 3 members), Food & Drug Administration; Center Director’s award for Scientific Achievement, Center for Biologics Evaluation & Research/FDA, 1996.

Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in Graduate Program, UCDavis, 1991.

Willamette University: American Chemical Society Scholarship, American Institute of Chemists award for Top Graduating Senior in Chemistry, Graduated Cum Laude, 1989.


Podcast

Associate Professor of Biology, Amanda Ingram, and Dean of the College, Scott Feller, talk about the benefits of urban farming.

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