Cochise College’s Sierra Vista Campus full-time chemistry instructor is one of the researchers who contributed to a study featured in the latest edition of the bi-weekly scientific journal Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Rowshan Begum has just completed her first year as a faculty member in the Cochise College Science Department after a long career conducting academic and corporate research in Asia and North America.
Rowshan Begum works in a lab in 2013.
“She brings real-world experience to our students,” said Beth Krueger, Dean of Math, Sciences and Health Sciences at Cochise College. “She’s positive, student-oriented and maintains high standards. That’s important, because if you don’t, you’re not preparing students for a nursing or medical career, or for a four-year school, or wherever they’re headed. You have to make sure you maintain those standards and quality, and that’s a focus of hers.”
The 2012 study, “Chelate effects in sulfate binding by amide/urea-based ligands,” was led by University of Kansas professor Kristin Bowman-James and also included the work of researchers Chuandong Jia and Qi-Qiang Wang, and crystallographer Victor W. Day. It is featured on the cover of the July 7 edition of the journal.
“For my part, I studied many anions (negatively-charged ions) day after day to see which is good for binding,” Begum said. “Sulfate is important biologically and environmentally, so we studied how ligands can bind the sulfate ion.”
Prior to moving to Sierra Vista to teach at Cochise College, Begum was a member of university-level research teams in the United States and Canada for more than 10 years. She earned her master’s degree in chemistry from University of Dhaka, then taught in Shahjalal University of Science and Technology in Bangladesh for four years. She earned her PhD in organometallic chemistry in 2002 from Nara Women’s University in Japan.
Begum moved to the United States and worked for the University of Missouri-Columbia, the University of Kansas, and York University in Toronto, then returned to KU before a brief stint as a visiting professor at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.
“I was almost always in a research position that was dependent on a grant, so when the grant was over, I was done there,” she said. “I’m very excited to be at Cochise College. I enjoy teaching here: Small classrooms, good contact with the students, my colleagues, and especially the weather — the snowless weather.”
Her research has been presented in more than 20 published scientific articles, including three journal cover features. She was the main author in a study comparing phenyl- and pyridyl-bridged transition metal dimers that was published last year in the Inorganica Chimica Acta journal.
Although she completed her research in anion binding chemistry at KU with Bowman-James years ago, it will likely be included in future published papers and articles. But now, Begum is thrilled to be able to set full-time research aside and focus on educating students. This fall, she will be teaching four chemistry classes at Cochise College: introductory chemistry, general chemistry I and II, and organic chemistry.
“I like teaching much better than researching, because in research, you can spend day after day, week after week, and no result,” she laughed.
She won’t be giving up research completely, though. Following the footsteps of her colleagues in the Cochise College Science Department who have recently implemented two undergraduate research projects studying bean beetles and wildlife navigation, Begum plans to establish something similar for chemistry students. She is also the adviser for the college’s pre-pharmacy club, which seeks to help its members become qualified applicants to a professional college of pharmacy.
“Dr. Begum goes out of her way to help students,” Krueger said. “She’s someone who is willing to help them understand the concepts and spend extra time with them. I like her positive, can-do attitude, and she’s a wonderful member of our department.”