swimming and diving Coaches

Bob Clemmer enters his 12th season as head of the Saints men's and women's swimming and diving programs. Clemmer also serves as the Aquatic Director for the Augsbury Center pool facility.

Clemmer had over 20 years of coaching experience prior to coming to St. Lawrence. He has served as the head coach with the Chartiers Valley Swim Club (Pittsburgh, Pa.), Pittsburgh Aquatic Club, Team Delaware Swim Team and most recently with the New Jersey Wave. Clemmer has helped produce 25 High School All-Americans, several Olympic trial and national finalists, National Champions as well as Pan Pacific, Pan American and Olympic Festival medalists.

Along with his extensive club coaching experience, he spent over 10 years coaching at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Virginia. He has had the opportunity to coach student-athletes of all talent levels, from Division I All-Americans to a 1996 USA Olympic team qualifier. Pittsburgh and Virginia were consistently ranked in the top 25 in the NCAA during Clemmer's tenure as an assistant.

The Philadelphia, Pa, native has collected many accolades for his hard work and dedication to swimming and diving. He earned the honor of coaching the 1995 and 1997 USA National Junior Teams. Clemmer has been the head coach at the 1993 and 1995 Olympic Festival and was the head individual medley coach for the 1994 and 1997 USA National Distance camps.

Trevor Herzog, a former diver at St. Bonaventure University, has joined the St. Lawrence University men's and women's swimming and diving coaching staff as diving coach.

Herzog is a 2011 graduate of St. Bonaventure and was a four-year member of the swim team. He finished sixth in the Atlantic 10 on the three meter board and eighth on the one meter board in his senior year.

A native of Liverpool, NY, he was captain of the diving team in 2010-11 and was a member of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee. He was a two-time A-10 Commissioner's Dean's List recipient and an NCAA Athletic Scholarship winner. He was the winner of the Eugene Klier Award for Leadership, Friendship and Sacrifice while a member of the Liverpool High School Swimming and Diving team.

He has worked as a coach at the Penn State Diving Camp and at the Southern Tier Diving Club in St. Bonaventure and has had an internship in strength and conditioning in addition to student teaching in physical education.

Victoria Lederer joined the Saint swimming and diving program staff as assistant swim coach in the fall of 2012.

A five-time All America at Kenyon College, Lederer graduated in 2011 and was a member of the 2008 and 2009 Kenyon national championship swim teams. She earned All America honors in the 1650 freestyle, 400 individual medley and 200 breaststroke. She was a three-year winner of the College Swimming Coaches Association of America Scholar-Athlete Award and the 2010-11 team captain. She was the 2011 Stephen E. Bennett Memorial Award at Kenyon, earning her degree in chemistry with a minor in art history.

She is a four-time finisher in the Alcatraz 1.6 Mile Open Water Swim and competed in the 2010 Pittsburgh Triathlon.

A native of North Wildwood, NJ, she was a marketing assistant ad DelMo sports prior to joining the staff at St. Lawrence.

Education History:
Guest Researcher, Chalmers University of Technology, 2009
Keck Teaching and Research Fellow, Bryn Mawr College, 2004
Ph.D. Cornell University, Physical Chemistry, 2001
M.S. Cornell University, Physical Chemistry, 1998
B.S. Western Washington University, Chemistry, 1996
B.A. Western Washington University, Women Studies, 1996

Research Interests:
My research seeks to distinguish features of chemical structure that control how drug molecules interact with DNA. Molecules that become threaded through the helix, thereby distorting DNA shape, can inhibit further replication and are of particular interest. Students in my lab make ruthenium based molecules that intercalate between the base pairs inside the double helix of DNA. Exactly how the ruthenium molecules initially approach DNA, become inserted and eventually exist in equilibrium as a free and bound molecule is studied using synthesis and spectrocopic tools.