swimming and diving Coaches

Bob Clemmer enters his 11th 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.

The Saints' men's and women's swimming and diving teams welcomed Cameron Kainer of Georgetown, TX as the new assistant coach for the 2010 season. 

Kainer is a 2010 graduate of The University of Texas of the Permian Basin where he was a four-year member of the swim team.  Captaining the squad his junior and senior seasons, he is a member of the UTPB All-Time Top Ten in 1000 Freestyle, 1,650 Freestyle, 200 Breaststroke and 400 Individual Medley.  In 2008, he swam on the Men's Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championship Team. 

Majoring in communications with a minor in political science, Kainer earned All-Conference Academic honors (2008-2010), was a Merit Scholarship Award Recipient, and was a frequent member of the UTPB Dean's List.  He also served as the President of the Student Athletic Advisory Committee at UTPB.   

Alison Riccobono, a 2006 graduate of The Pennsylvania State University, joined the St. Lawrence University athletic staff as the diving coach in the fall of 2008.

Riccobono was named an All-America in 2005 and was a two-time NCAA National Qualifier while diving for Penn State. In 2004, she was a medalist at the Big Ten Finals and was named “Big Ten Diver of the Week” multiple times throughout her career as a Nittany Lion. The diver graduated Penn State with a degree in psychology.

Before coming to St. Lawrence, Riccobono was the Head Diving Coach at Ypsilanti High School where she started with new divers and developed a competitive dive team. She also coached the MEGA Conference Diver of the Year. Most recently, she was the Junior Olympic Diving Coach Assistant at Eastern Michigan University, where she worked with younger divers. She has been working as a Rehabilitation Associate at the Eisenhower Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan since graduating.

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.