Dora joined our Department of Chemistry in the Fall Semester of 1992.  However, she started taking a graduate course in the Spring Semester, 1991.  I met Dora first in my CHE501 Organic Spectroscopy course in the spring of 1991 when she took this course as a continuing education program student.  Dora worked in a company in Arizona after she received her B.S. degree in chemistry from Hofstra University, but decided to pursue her career in our graduate chemistry program.  Accordingly, she had a clear aspiration to be a strong Ph.D. chemist.  After completing six graduate courses with excellent performance in her first year, she started her Ph.D. research in my group from June 1993. She was the recipient of a GAANN Fellowship from the Department of Education.  She picked up a research project on the development of new methodologies for the syntheses of carbocyclic as well as heterocyclic compounds of medicinal interest using catalytic processes.  Dora has done a very good job in her Ph.D. research, and was awarded her Ph.D. degree in August 1997.  The title of her dissertation was "Silylcarbocyclization of 1,6-Diynes Catalyzed by Various Rhodium Complexes".  From this research she co-authored three papers in leading journals:  one paper was published in Journal of Organic Chemistry, one in Organometallics, and one in Journal of the American Chemical Society.  She also presented her research achievement at the Eighth International Conference on Organometallic Chemistry directed toward Organic Syntheses, which was held at Santa Barbara in August, 1995 besides her presentations at the American Chemical Society National Meetings as well as the New York Academy of Sciences meeting.  Thus, she showed her talent in research on organic syntheses, especially those using transition metal catalysts.

            Dora was highly motivated, well organized, and conscientious.  Although she had excellent research ability, she was equally talented in interpersonal skills.  Dora had a very nice personality and was easy to work with.  She got along very well with other faculty, staff, postdoctoral and graduate students.  She is articulate and has excellent presentation skills, as demonstrated both in presentations within our laboratory group and in public forums.  She also demonstrated great patience and concern in her mentoring relationships with younger graduate and undergraduate students in the research.

            In addition to Dora’s formal achievements, I would like to mention about some of her private life and her fight against breast cancer.

            Dora was engaged with Iggy Kass (Ph.D. with Professor Nicole Sampson in 1999) in the spring of 1995.  Since Iggy was a very warm nice person and a good friend of our laboratory members at that time, we were all very happy about their engagement, and Dora became even lovelier than before.  However, sad news was received in September 1995 that she was diagnosed to have a breast cancer.  I clearly remember the day both Dora and Iggy came to my office to reveal the sad news.  I did not have words to console them other than encouraging them to go through treatment as soon as possible and seeing a couple of doctors for their opinions.  It was soon after I received an invitation to their marriage ceremony and party in December.  She started receiving treatment, but she postponed surgery after her honeymoon.  Dora was shining at her marriage ceremony and party in December 1995, embraced by her husband and loves of her family, friends, church, and God.  After the surgery, she had chemotherapy as well.  It must be extremely painful, but she was strong, fighting with the formidable enemy.  She stopped her experiments in the laboratory, but she had done enough experiments to write her Ph.D. thesis by that time.  She worked on her Third Meeting proposal, which was nicely done.  During her preparation of the research proposal and the progress report, we recognized that she could not move her arm, but she did not mention anything, enduring the pain and inconvenience.  Accordingly, I was very happy at her Ph.D. seminar and defense in the summer of 1997.  Since it was an extraordinary achievement for her, I could not stop disclosing her “secret”, i.e., breast cancer, when I presented her---only a limited number of people knew about it in the department at that time.  Although the audience joined me to praise her courage and achievement, it appeared that Dora wanted to keep it confidential.  Thus, I regretted to have disclosed it without getting her consent in advance although she did not say anything to me.  Most of my students did not know about Dora’s fight against breast cancer, they were very surprised to learn about it and all admired her.  I thought Dora richly deserved it.

            Dora waited for Iggy’s completion of his Ph.D. and moved to the Boston area because of Iggy’s job at Micromass, Inc.  Dora also joined the same company later.  I am sure Dora had a happy time there with Iggy and his unconditional love. 

            It is deeply regretful that Dora passed away because of the recurred cancer on December 21, 2000.  Her research achievements are, however, recorded permanently in her publications and conference abstracts.  In addition to her professional achievements, she is warmly remembered by members of the Chemistry Department at Stony Brook for her beauty, gentleness, shyness, and her courage and vigorous fight against cancer.

Publications by late Dr. Dora M. Fracchiolla Kass

Publications of Original Research

1.      .  "Silylcarbobicyclization of 1,6-Diynes:  A Novel Catalytic Route to Bicyclo[3.3.0]octenones", I. Ojima, D. A. Fracchiolla, R. J. Donovan, and P. Banerji, J. Org. Chem., 59 7594-7595 (1994).

2.      "A New and Efficient Catalytic Route to Bicyclo[3.3.0]octa-1,5 dien-3-ones", I. Ojima, D. A. Fracchiolla Kass, and J. Zhu, Organometallics 15, 5191-5195 (1996).

3.      "Silylcarbocyclizations (SiCaCs) of 1,6-Diynes", I. Ojima, J. Zhu, E. S. Vidal, and D. A. Fracchiolla Kass, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 120, 6690-6697 (1998).

4.      "Silylcarbocyclization of 1,6-Diynes Catalyzed by Various Rhodium Complexes", D. A. Fracchiolla Kass, Dissertation, State University of New York at Stony Brook (1997).

Presentations at National and International Chemistry Meetings

1.      208th American Chemical Society National Meeting, Washington, D. C., August 21-25, 1994:  “Studies on the Selective Type 2 and Type 3 Silylcarbocyclization (SiCaC) Reactions of Diynes”, R. J. Donovan, D. A. Fracchiolla, and I Ojima (ORGN 314).

2.      8th International Symposium on Organometallic Chemistry Directed Towards Organic Synthesis (B. Lipshutz, Organizer), Santa Barbara, CA, August 7-10, 1995:  "Silylcarbobicyclization of 1,6-Diynes Catalyzed by Rh Complexes: An Efficient Route to Bicyclo[3.3.0] Octenones".  D. A. Fracchiolla, C. Takeuchi, and I. Ojima (248).

3.      212th American Chemical Society National Meeting, Orlando, FL, August 25-29, 1996:  "Silylcarbocyclizations of 1,6-diynes Catalyzed by Rhodium Complexes", J. Zhu, E. S. Vidal, D. A. Fracchiolla Kass, I. Ojima  (ORGN 432).

4.      The New York Academy of Sciences Poster Program for Graduate Students in Chemistry, New York, NY, November 2, 1996:  "Silcarbobicyclization of 1,6-Diynes by Rh and Rh-Co Complexes", D. A. Fracchiolla Kass, J. Zhu, E. S. Vidal, I. Ojima.

5.      213th American Chemical Society National Meeting, San Francisco, CA, April 13-17, 1997:  "Novel Synthetic Routes to Cyclopentanoid and Carbapenem Skeletons", J. Zhu, E. S. Vidal, D. A. Fracchiolla Kass, I. Ojima  (ORGN 587).

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