Larry S. Helmick
Professor of ChemistryAddress
Office: ENS 281Phone: (937) 766-7950
Email: helmickl@cedarville.edu
Dr. Helmick has been Professor of Chemistry at Cedarville since March 16, 1968. He was born in Traverse City, Michigan, in 1941 and graduated from Traverse City Central High School in 1959. In 1963 received his B.S. degree in physical science from Cedarville College, having also studied at Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, from 1961-63. He was awarded his Ph.D. in organic chemistry by Ohio University in 1968, where he was a Graduate Research Assistant specializing in the synthesis, structure determination, and properties of nitrogen heterocyclic compounds. Immediately after graduation, Dr. Helmick gained some industrial chemistry experience working for one summer as a Quality Control Technician for Duffy-Mott Corporation in Grawn, Michigan. Then starting in 1969, he continued academic research on nitrogen heterocycles as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Florida for three successive summers and at the University of Illinois for three more summers. He then took a one year sabbatical from Cedarville College to continue research at the University of Florida. In 1978, Dr. Helmick obtained teaching experience at a state university by accepting a six month appointment as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Chemistry at Wright State University. From 1980 to 1987 and 1989 to 1993, he was involved in industrial research with fuels and lubricants as a Summer Faculty Fellow at the NASA-Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, and in June, 1988, received a 15 month National Research Council Fellowship and took another sabbatical from Cedarville College to continue research on lubricants for NASA. From 1994 to 1997, he was involved in lubrication research as a Summer Faculty Fellow at Wright Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The summer of 1998, he worked as an employee of AYT Corporation in Brook Park, Ohio, and again was stationed at the NASA-Lewis Research Center. Dr. Helmick's main fields of interest are the racemization of amino acids, rates of dripstone deposition, hydrogen-deuterium exchange in nitrogen heterocycles, the origin of optical activity, thermal stability of fuels and lubricants, and the search for Noah's ark. He has more that 40 refereed articles published on these topics in the "Journal of the American Chemical Society," "Journal of Heterocyclic Chemistry," "Journal of Organic chemistry," "Chemical Communications," "NASA Technical Memorandums," "Tribology Transactions," "Lubrication Engineering," "Tribology Letters," and the "Creation Research Society Quarterly." Dr. Helmick is a member of the American Chemical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Creation Research Society. He also belongs to the Grace Baptist Church in Cedarville and has been a co-sponsor for the Senior High Youth Group and a deacon. He and his wife, Catherine L. Walmsley, whom he married on 9 June 1962, have two children, John and Shannon. Dr. Helmick's biography is included in "American Men of Science," "International Scholars Directory," "Who's Who in the Midwest," "Who's Who in America," "Dictionary of International Biography," and "Men of Achievement." In 1973, he received the Faculty of the Year Award from Cedarville College and in 1976 was chosen one of the Outstanding Young Men of America. In 1990, he was selected by the Cedarville College Alumni Council to receive the Distinguished Educator Award.
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