Texas A&M University hired Greg Hogan in 2016 to establish a chemistry program at its Texarkana campus, working from the ground up.
“It has been a daunting and difficult task, but very personally rewarding,” Dr. Hogan said. “My goal has been to keep up the A&M name in our small town and ensure our students get a quality science education. I firmly believe that requires giving them the opportunity to conduct hands-on research.”
Instrumentation has been the department’s greatest limitation in building a well-functioning lab and this is the area where Welch has helped enormously.
Dr. Hogan used his first Welch Foundation departmental grant to purchase a thermogravimetric analyzer to facilitate research in his field and he has incorporated its use into three upper-level classes.
Eight years after its start, the department includes two faculty members, Dr. Hogan and an instructor, after it unfortunately lost its only other tenure-track professor the summer of 2024.
“Luckily, our part-time instructor was able to join us full-time to fill in – my wife,” he laughed. “We originally met as chemistry students, and while she didn’t go on to pursue a doctorate, her master’s degree in chemistry with an emphasis in instrumental inorganic chemistry makes her a good fit for our program.”
The 2024 Welch equipment grant supported the purchase of a powder X-ray diffractometer, important for Dr. Hogan’s work and useful for expanding students’ research experience.
Dr. Hogan’s research focuses on developing hydrogen-bonded metal organic frameworks (MOFs), establishing new crystalline structures, and then incorporating various molecules. His lab collaborates with Dr. Joe Reibenspies at the main campus of Texas A&M University for analysis. He experiments with changing the distance between layers in the MOFs to finetune the frameworks to accommodate larger molecules, and to determine the relative selectivity MOFs have for a variety of guest molecules. In the last year and a half, his lab has produced 10 new metal-organic frameworks.
“The Welch Foundation has been right there along our journey,” he said, “helping us out to establish the program and support our students. I love being in the lab and sharing research with students. We have had a couple of publications accepted and are working on another. It is such a great experience for the students: they conduct experiments, analyze data on the computer, and write sections of the papers we submit.”
He proudly notes that all but one chemistry major has gone on to graduate school.
“I find chemistry fascinating, and I like to study new things,” Dr. Hogan said. “Welch has really helped showcase research to students and spur their interest in chemistry because they enjoy discovery. I find satisfaction in helping mold and shape the program to prepare our students for the next steps in their education and careers.”