Shannon Timmons

Dr. Shannon Timmons joined the LTU faculty in the fall of 2008 and teaches organic chemistry and biochemistry courses in the Department of Natural Sciences. She is a native of Canada and received her Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia in 2002. A summer internship at a local biotechnology company, BioMedica Diagnostics Inc., inspired Dr. Timmons to pursue graduate studies in medicinal chemistry. In graduate school, Dr. Timmons developed new chemical and enzymatic methods to synthesize sugar nucleotides, organic molecules used to add carbohydrates to natural product-based drug candidates, under the supervision of Dr. David Jakeman in the College of Pharmacy at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She earned her PhD in Chemistry in 2007 and received a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada postdoctoral fellowship to further study carbohydrate chemistry and biochemistry in the research laboratory of Dr. Jon Thorson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before beginning her career at LTU.

Dr. Timmons has a keen interest in the chemistry of biologically active organic molecules.  In her research laboratory at LTU, her undergraduate student researchers have recently synthesized aspirin analogs for anticancer and antibacterial testing, bisphenol A analogs for toxicity and hyperactivity testing in zebrafish, and cationic contrast agents for micro-CT imaging applications related to the study of degenerative disc disease.

Dr. Timmons is also a member of the American Chemical Society and has served in several leadership roles on the Executive Committee of the Detroit Local Section of the ACS. Outside the classroom and research laboratory, Dr. Timmons enjoys travelling and spending time with her husband, Adam, and sons, Brayden and Curran.