Jason Gillmore joined the faculty at Hope in July 2004. Tenured and promoted in 2010 and promoted again in 2016, Professor Gillmore has also been a Schaap Research Fellow since 2013.

Professor Gillmore has recently returned from a year-long sabbatical at the MSU Bioeconomy Institute and its Organic Energy Storage Lab. He is excited to resume teaching in the organic and general chemistry programs at Hope.

In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Dr. Gillmore maintains a research group of three to six undergraduate students in the summer and throughout the academic year. Since beginning his independent career at Hope College in 2004, Prof. Gillmore has published 13 peer-reviewed articles (9 of these with a total of 36 undergraduate co-authors) on his research and teaching and has had continuous external funding totaling over $1.34 M. This external support, along with over $280,000 in internal funding, supports his research and pedagogy at Hope College. Professor Gillmore is always looking for new undergraduates to join his research group! 

See Dr. Gillmore's research group page 

Areas of expertise

• Organic chemistry
• Research interests in organic photochemistry and electrochemistry, photochromism, photoinduced charge transfer, photoresponsive materials, computational modelling and heteroaromatic synthesis
• Pedagogical interests in peer-led team learning, course-based undergraduate research experiences, using undergraduate research as a bridge to 2YC-4YC student transfers, and mentoring new and future faculty

Education

• Ph.D., organic chemistry, University of Rochester, 2003
• M.S., organic chemistry, Virginia Tech, 1998
• B.S., chemistry, Virginia Tech, 1996

Additional Experience

• Visiting professor and interim associate director of research and development, Michigan State University Bioeconomy Institute Organic Energy Storage Lab (Holland, Michigan), July 2018–July 2019  —  redox shuttles for lithium ion batteries and donor-acceptor systems for symmetric organic redox flow batteries
• Visiting research professor of chemistry at the Arizona State University (Tempe, Arizona) Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry and the Center for Bio-inspired Solar Fuel Production, with Professor Devens Gust, August 2011–May 2012 — reverse photochromes for molecular logic devices, synthesis, time-resolved spectroscopy and computational electrochemistry
• NIH postdoctoral traineeship, Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee), Department of Chemistry and the Center in Molecular Toxicology, mentor Professor Ned A. Porter — biologically relevant free radical clock reactions, lipid autooxidation kinetics
• Consultant, Eastman Kodak Company (Rochester, New York), with Drs. Samir Farid and Douglas Robello, 1999–2003 — photoresponsive plastics

Honors, grants and awards

• ACS Petroleum Research Fund undergraduate research grant, 2019–2022 ($70,000)
• co-PI, NSF MRI to support the Midwest Undergraduate Computational Chemistry Consortium cluster, 2019–2022 ($400,400)
• Program Director, Beckman Scholars Program award to Hope College, 2018–2021 ($104,000)
• Retroactively named to Research Corporation for Science Advancement’s Cottrell Scholar Class of 2006 (2015)
• Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, 2014–2019 ($60,000)
• NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award, 2010–2016 ($549,000)
• Research Corporation Cottrell College Science Award, 2006–2009 ($63,090)
• Project Kaleidoscope Faculty for the 21st Century, Class of 2006
• Dreyfus Foundation Start-up Award, 2004–2009 ($30,000)
• Hope College Janet L. Andersen Excellence in Teaching Award (2015)
• Hope College VanderBush-Weller Award for extraordinary contributions to the lives of students (2015)
• Hope College Chemistry Department, inaugural Schaap Research Fellow — research endowment (2013–2023, renewable)

Selected publications

For full citations and a complete list of Professor Gillmore’s publications, see Digital Commons.

• “Experimental and computational electrochemistry of quinazolinespirohexadienones – differential electrochromic vs. photochromic behavior,” Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry, 2019 
• "Synthesis of 5,6-Diaminoacenaphthylene by Reduction of Sterically Crowded Nitro Groups with Sodium Dithionite,” SynOpen, 2018
• “Chapter 6. Resourcing, Scalability, and Sustainability of CUREs,” coauthor of a chapter in Expanding the CURE Model:Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience, edited by R. Waterman and J.M. Heemstra, Research Corporation for Science Advancement: Tucson, AZ, 2018
• “Incorporating Authentic Research in an Optional Component of the Second Semester Organic Laboratory Course,” with Professors Traci Smith & Stephen Scogin, The Chemical Educator, 2017
• “Throwing away the cookbook: implementing course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) in chemistry,” coauthor of an invited chapter in Educational and Outreach Projects from the Cottrell Scholars Collaborative, edited by R. Waterman and A. Feig, ACS Symposium Series: Washington, D.C., 2017
• “Fast Colorimetric Titration Protocol for Quanitification of Boron Tribromide,” Tetrahedron Letters, 2016
• “Building and Testing Correlations for the Estimation of One-electron Reduction Potentials of a Diverse Set of Organic Molecules,” Journal of Physical Organic Chemistry, 2015
• “Modulating short wavelength fluorescence with long wavelength light,” Journal of American Chemistry Society, 2014
• “Synthesis and structural investigation of an ‘oxazinoquinolinespirohexadienone’ that only exists as its long-wavelength ring-opened quinonimine isomer,” Journal of Organic Chemistry, 2012
• “Expanding and testing a computational method for predicting the ground state reduction potentials of organic molecules on the basis of empirical correlation to experiment,” Journal of Organic Chemistry, 2012
• “Successful Student Transitions from the Community College to the Four-Year College Facilitated by Undergraduate Research,” Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly, 2011
• “Synthesis and photochemistry of two quinoline analogs of the perimidinespirohexadienone family of photochromes,” Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology A, 2009
• “Efficient Computational Methods for Accurately Predicting Reduction Potentials of Organic Molecules,” Journal of Physical Chemistry A, 2008

professional affiliations

• American Chemical Society
• Inter-American Photochemical Society
• Materials Research Society
• Council on Undergraduate Research
• Midwestern Association of Chemistry Teachers in Liberal Arts Colleges
• Intervarsity Emerging Scholars Network

institutional service

• Hope College Appeals & Grievances Panel, 2017–2018
• Founding Organizer, Schaap Chemistry Symposium, Hope College, Holland, Michigan, July 2017; co-organizer July 2019
• Hope College Status Committee, 2014–2017, (tenure/promotion, merit raises, internal grants, board and committee appointments)
• Hope College Strategic Planning Steering Committee, 2014–2015
• Hope College HHMI Steering Committee, 2012–2016
• Hope College Chemistry Faculty Search Committees: 2005, 2006, 2012 (chair), 2013 (chair)
• Hope College SHARP online summer research application and student management software, Development Team Faculty Coordinator, 2009–2011; Chemistry Department Liaison, 2007–2010
• Hope College Extracurricular Activities Committee, 2005–2008 (chair)
• Hope College Health Professions Advisory Committee, 2008–2010
• Hope College Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid, 2010–2011
• Hope College Academic Computing Committee, 2013–2014
• Seminar Coordinator, Hope College Chemistry Department, academic years 2007–2009, 2014–2015
• Hope College Chemistry Club/ACS Student Affiliates chapter advisor, 2005–2008; reactivated national chapter status, won three consecutive honorable mention chapter awards

Outside the college

Jason enjoys weight-lifting and physical training, practicing Tang Soo Do (a Korean 'karate'), reading (mostly popular fiction), travel and enjoying life on the lakeshore year-round with his wife and school-age son and daughter. They genuinely enjoy the lake-effect snow in the winter, the wonderful beaches in the summer, and walking and biking in spring and fall. His family is also actively involved at Calvary CRC and Holland Christian Schools’ Rose Park Elementary.

Passionate about mentoring new and future faculty, Jason is the founding organizer of the P3 “Postdoc to PUI Prof” workshop, preparing postdoctoral scholars for faculty careers in chemistry at undergraduate institutions. He has also been a frequent panelist or co-organizer of the American Chemical Society’s “Postdoc to Faculty” workshop. He is also active in the Cottrell Scholars community on initiatives related to Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs). An alumnus of the 2019 National Diversity Equity Workshop, Jason is a passionate advocate for inclusive excellence in STEM, locally and nationally. 

Jason is on the Board of the Reaction Mechanisms Conference and the ACS Committee on the Petroleum Research Fund (formerly the PRF Advisory Board). He also serves as a reviewer for the National Science Foundation, the ACS-PRF, Research Corporation for Science Advancement, the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, CUR chemistry program reviews, Journal of Organic Chemistry, Journal of Physical Chemistry, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, Chemical Educator, Journal of Physical Organic Chemistry and Organic Preparations & Procedures International.