Donald E. Elmore
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Wellesley College
Although I've lived in the Midwest and West Coast, living in Wellesley is my first time out East. I was born and raised in Murphysboro, IL, a small town in the southern tip of the state. After going to the last three years of high school in the Chicago area I went back to the small-town life as a student at Grinnell College (see the sweatshirt on the right!) where I double-majored in chemistry and English.
As an undergraduate I worked on primarily computational projects studying small molecules with Steve Scheiner (who is now at Utah State) at Southern Illinois University (Go Salukis!) and Jim Swartz at Grinnell College. However, I was always fascinated with biological systems, so I gravitated towards them when I started graduate school at Caltech in sunny Southern California. At Caltech, I worked in Dennis Dougherty's research group on experimental and computational studies of mechanosensitive ion channels. During my last year at Caltech I also taught as a Visiting Instructor at the Joint Science Department of Claremont McKenna, Scripps, and Pitzer Colleges.
Outside of work, my wife, Julia Prentice, and I devote time to ball throwing for our adopted dachshund (weiner dog!), Chutney, who you might see walking me around campus. As well, Julia and I closely follow the baseball season (we became addicted to Dodgers Stadium while we were in Los Angeles), attend folk/Americana (and other) concerts (always on the lookout for new artists and venues), watch movies (I have to keep up with friends from Los Angeles on our annual Academy Award predictions), and enjoy being outdoors in beautiful New England (when it's not iced over!).
