Dr. Joshua John Klaassen is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Cumberland University. He joined the faculty in the summer of 2024. Prior to coming to Cumberland, he completed his undergraduate studies in Chemistry with a minor in Biology at Nebraska Wesleyan University. After completion of undergraduate studies, he moved to Kansas City, Missouri where he completed a doctorate in Chemistry and Geosciences under the guidance of James R. Durig. During this time his studies included spectroscopic, conformational, and structural studies. His dissertation was entitled “Conformational and structural determinations of substituted four and five membered rings by infrared, Raman, and microwave spectral studies”.
A partial list of his publications can be found below. During this time, he also served as a guest editor for the Ben van der Veken Honor Issue, July 2014, Spectrochimica Acta Part A Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy 136. He has also served as part of a team for editing a peer- reviewed international journal and as part of the scientific counsel for several legal cases.

Dr. Klaassen has taught undergraduate courses in chemistry, biochemistry, environmental science, and forensics for 13 years at University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas University, Metro Community College, University of Central Missouri, and Bethel University before coming to Cumberland University.

Professional and organizational affiliations include Coblentz Society and Society for Applied Spectroscopy.

Dr. Klaassen is currently looking for students to take part in research opportunities. Research includes the fields of computational chemistry, molecular structural determinations, biochemical power generation and storage, and spectroscopic studies. Please contact Dr. Klaassen if interested in research, scientific meetings, and/or scientific writing/publication.

Publications:
Durig, J.R., Panikar, S.S., Klaassen, J.J. “Far infrared spectroscopy applications” Encyclopedia
of Spectroscopy and Spectrometry, 1 January 2016, Pages 558-565, ISBN: 978-012803224-4