Deborah C. Bebout was born in Wilmington, Delaware and lived in numerous northeastern United States locations before moving to California as a junior in high school. She was inspired to pursue a career in Chemistry education while at Harvey Mudd College. Her undergraduate research with Professor Phillip Myhre involved preparation of isotopically-enriched carbocations for structural characterization by NMR methods. Her doctoral research focused on preparation of strained hydrocarbons for structural and mechanistic studies with Professor Barry Carpenter at Cornell University. She was awarded an NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship to study the metal specificity of dopamine beta-hydroxylase with Professor Joseph Villafranca in the Chemistry Department at Penn State. Professor Bebout joined the William & Mary Chemistry faculty in 1993. The initial focus of her research program was biologically-relevant coordination chemistry of Hg(II). Over time, her research program has expanded to focus on comparative coordination chemistry of divalent zinc triad metal ions with multidentate ligands using a combination of crystallography, nuclear magenetic resonance and mass spectrometry techniques. Her independent research activities have been supported by external funding from the NSF, NIH, Research Corporation, Dreyfus Foundation, PRF and Jeffress Memorial Trust. Her research program has provided professional development opportunities for over 100 BS candidates, as well as nine MS candidates and one postdoctoral fellow. Her current collaborators include:
Craig A. Bayse Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Old Dominion Univesity
Lisa M. Berreau Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Utah State University
Raymond J. Butcher Department of Chemistry, Howard University
Robert D. Pike Department of Chemistry, The College of William & Mary
John C. Poutsma Department of Chemistry, The College of William & Mary
Lukasz Wojtas Department of Chemistry, University of South Florida
Updated January 2023