Dr. Dietmar Kennepohl FCIC

Dietmar Kennepohl is Professor of Chemistry at Athabasca University (AU). He graduated Summa Cum Laude from McMaster University with a B.Sc. (Honours) degree in chemistry in 1984 and continued directly to his doctoral studies in main group synthetic chemistry at the University of Alberta where he obtained a Ph.D. in 1990. He became an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen in Germany where he investigated Te-N and Mn-N chemistry and later returned to Canada to design molecular metals as a post-doctoral fellow with a research group at the University of Guelph. He joined Athabasca University in 1993.

Most of his teaching experience has been in a distributed and online setting. He holds both a university and national teaching award. Over the years his research interests have included chemical education as well as petroleum, main group and coordination chemistry. His research in chemical education concentrates on the use of innovative distance delivery methods for undergraduate laboratory work. For example, the development of home-study chemistry kits (http://science.pc.athabascau.ca/chem217.nsf/experiments2?OpenPage) which are regularly used for AU’s CHEM 217 course or the Canadian Remote Sciences Laboratories (www.remotelab.ca) portal done in collaboration with NAIT.

During his tenure at AU has been Acting Vice President Academic, served two terms as Chair of the Centre for Science and has been Program Director for the general B.Sc. and B.Sc. (Post Diploma) degrees. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand (1999-2000), Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (2007-2008), and the Open University in the United Kingdom (2008).

Recent Submissions

  • Using home-laboratory kits to teach general chemistry 

    Kennepohl, Dietmar K. (Chemistry Education: Research and Practice, 2007)
    University-level chemistry courses that contain a substantial laboratory component have always been a challenge to deliver effectively through distance education. One potential solution is to enable students to carry out ...
  • The Science Gap in Canada: A Post-Secondary Perspective 

    Kennepohl, Dietmar K. (Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 2009-04-04)
    Despite having its students score among the top in the world in mathematics and science, the level of science literacy and participation in science-related fields in Canada is relatively low. In the context of the economic ...
  • Student and Faculty Outcomes of Undergraduate Science Research Projects by Geographically Dispersed Students 

    Shaw, Lawton; Kennepohl, Dietmar K. (International Review of Research in Open and Distance Education, 2013-12)
    Senior undergraduate research projects are important components of most undergraduate science degrees. The delivery of such projects in a distance education format is challenging. Athabasca University (AU) science project ...
  • Using home-laboratory kits to teach general chemistry 

    Kennepohl, Dietmar K. (Chemistry Education: Research and Practice, 2007-06-08)
    University-level chemistry courses that contain a substantial laboratory component have always been a challenge to deliver effectively through distance education. One potential solution is to enable students to carry out ...
  • Going the distance in Canada 

    Kennepohl, Dietmar K.; Last, Arthur M. (Education in Chemistry, 1998-01-01)
  • Remote Access to Instrumental Analysis for Distance Education in Science 

    Kennepohl, Dietmar K.; Baran, Jit; Connors, Martin; Quiqley, Kieron; Currie, Ron (International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 2005-11-01)
    Remote access to experiments offers distance educators another tool to integrate a strong laboratory component within a science course. Since virtually all modern chemical instrumental analysis in industry now use devices ...
  • Synthesis and structure of [[Cu2(6,6’-bis(2-(2pyridyl)ethylminomethyl)-2,2’-bipyridine)2][PF6]2 

    Kennepohl, Dietmar K.; Thomas, Angela; McDonald, Robert (Acta Crystallographica Section E, Crystal Structure Communications, 2006-10-12)
    In the structure of the title compound, [Cu2(C26H24N6)2]- (PF6)2, the Cu atoms of the cation are located on a twofold axis, and adopt a distorted tetrahedral coordination geometry. The terminal 2-(2-pyridyl)ethyl groups ...


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