Rate My Professor Don Jameson

Donald Jameson is a Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Gettysburg College, currently serving as Department Chair. He previously held the G. Bowers and Louise Hook Mansdorfer Professorship in Chemistry, an endowed position for research-active full professors. Jameson received the College's Dr. Robert E. Dutton, Class of 1946 Memorial Mentorship Award in spring 2019 for his dedication to excellence in mentoring students. He teaches organic chemistry, co-leads teams for textbook affordability initiatives, and contributes to innovative courses including I-Methods: Interfacial Medicine with Prof. Shelli Frey and I-Lab: Heavy Metals and Drugs with Prof. Kate Buettner. Jameson mentors undergraduate researchers in his laboratory in Science Center 343, shared with Prof. Suvrajit Sengupta, with students presenting posters at campus events such as Celebration '19.

Jameson's research centers on coordination chemistry and organic synthesis, including tridentate ligands like terpyridine analogues and pyrazolyl ligands, and their metal complexes with ruthenium, osmium, iron, and copper. He studies redox properties, spin state control, ligand substitution reactions, crystal structures, asymmetric transformations, and catalysis. Specific projects involve synthesis, resolution, racemization kinetics, and mechanisms of electron-poor Troger's base derivatives bearing fluoro, trifluoromethyl, and cyano substituents, as well as chiral cobaloximes from camphorquinone dioxime. His scholarship has garnered over 1,670 citations across 53 publications. Key works include "Application of Crystallization-Induced Asymmetric Transformation to a General, Scalable Method for the Resolution of 2,8-Disubstituted Troger's Base Derivatives" (2013), "2,6-Bis(N-pyrazolyl)pyridines: The Convenient Synthesis of a Family of Planar Tridentate N3 Ligands That are Terpyridine Analogues" (2010), "Rhenium(I) compounds bound by tripodal ligands of pyridine and N-methylimidazole" (2008), "Os(II)−Nitrosyl and Os(II)−Dinitrogen Complexes from Reactions between Os(VI)−Nitrido and Hydroxylamines and Methoxylamines" (2004), and "Tuning redox and spin state properties of Fe(II) N-heterocyclic complexes via electronic/steric influence on metal–ligand binding" (2004).