Graeme Wyllie was born in Balloch, Scotland, and attended the Vale of Leven Academy before obtaining his undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of St. Andrews. In 1994, he moved to the U.S. and completed his Ph.D. in bioinorganic chemistry at the University of Notre Dame before moving to Fargo to carry out three years of postdoctoral research at North Dakota State University. He joined the faculty at Concordia College in the fall of 2006 and since then has focused on teaching and the redesign of the general chemistry laboratory program, making it more sustainable, impactful to students, and increasing the connection of materials and topics to the real world, a program that culminates in a semester-long course-based research experience (CURE) looking at properties and the chemistry of chitosan alginate bioplastics each spring.
In addition to his day job teaching chemistry to undergraduate students, Dr. Wyllie also leads the Concordia Science Academy, a science outreach organization dedicated to providing students from elementary school on up with a positive science experience, one that is both educational and entertaining. In his instantly recognizable tie-dye lab coat and strong Scottish accent, Dr. Wyllie has been actively involved in science activities throughout the Fargo-Moorhead area and beyond, seeing several thousand kids every year. He has visited many of the schools in the region for science activities, worked with numerous community organizations, and even appeared on stage at the Minnesota State Fair in 2018 and 2019. He is a strong believer in making science fun and designing experiments and activities with a strong real-world connection.Publications
Articles and Chapters
Graeme R. A. Wyllie. “Triclosam, It’s not the bacteria but the soap that’s going to kill you.” How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi: Collected Quirks of Science, Tech, Math, and Engineering from Nerd Nite. St. Martin’s Press, 2024, 65-69
Sofia F. Palme, Andrew H. Johnson, and Graeme R. A. Wyllie. “Color, Candy, and Chromatography: A Combined TLC and HPLC Activity for the General Chemistry Laboratory.” Journal of Chemical Education, 2024, 101, 124-130.
Alexandra M. Ward and Graeme R. A. Wyllie. Bioplastics in the General Chemistry Laboratory: Building a Semester-Long Research Experience. Journal of Chemical Education, 2019, 96 (4), pp 668-676.
Graeme R. A. Wyllie. Embracing Limits in Creating a Responsible Scientist/Citizen — Reformation and Resilience: Lutheran Higher Education for Planetary Citizenship, Ernest Simmons and Erin Hemme Froslie (editors). Lutheran University Press, 2017. pp. 299-303.
Graeme R. A. Wyllie. Spectroscopic Determination of Triclosan Concentration in a Series of Antibacterial Soaps: A First-Year Undergraduate Laboratory Experiment. Journal of Chemical Education, 2015, 92 (1), pp 153–156.
Graeme R. A. Wyllie; Nathan J Silvernail; Oliver G Allen; Charles E Schulz; W. Robert Scheidt. Iron Nitrosyl "Natural" Porphyrinates: Does the Porphyrin Matter?" Inorganic Chemistry 2014 53(7), 3763-3768.
Kenton R. Rodgers; Graeme R. A. Wyllie; Gudrun S. Lukat-Rodgers. Insights into Heme Based O2 Sensing from Structure-Function Relationships in the FixL Proteins. The Smallest Biomolecules (Abhik Ghosh Ed.), 2008, Elsevier pp 564-594.
Graeme R. A. Wyllie; Orde Q. Munro; Charles E. Schulz; W. Robert. Scheidt Structural and physical characterization of (nitrato)iron(III) porphyrinates [Fe(por)(NO3)] — Variable coordination of nitrate. Polyhedron 2007, 26 (16), 4664-4672.
Bogdan M. Leu; Marek Z. Zgierski; Graeme R. A. Wyllie; W. Robert Scheidt; Wolfgang Sturhahn; E. Ercan Alp; Stephen M. Durbin; J. Timothy Sage. Quantitative vibrational dynamics of iron in nitrosyl porphyrins. Journal of the American Chemical Society 2004, 126 (13), 4211-27.
Graeme R. A. Wyllie; W. Robert. Scheidt. Solid-State Structures of Metalloporphyrin NOx Compounds. Chemical Reviews 2002, 102 (4), 1067-1089.