Chemistry and Biochemistry News

Amber (Woodruff) Wilson, a chemistry alumna (BS’10/MS’11) has been featured in the American Chemical Society (ACS) Younger Chemists Committee (YCC) Blog. Amber is employed by Green Analytics, LLC, a which performs “testing for state compliance, research and development, gender determination, product development, environmental monitoring, and packaging integrity” in the regulated cannabis marketplace. Amber has been active in the ACS since her student days, as a member of the student club on campus.

Read the blog to get to know more about the Chair of the ACSYCC.

The S3RP students are on another field trip! This trip was to visit two Biomedical Engineering Labs at George Mason University, with a side trip to Great Falls, an area where the Potomac River flows rapidly over steep rocks through the Mather Gorge.

Dr. Tiphanie Raffegeau and Dr. Quentin Sanders gave everyone a tour of their labs, the SMART lab and the Empower lab respectively. Dr. Raffegeau’s lab is investigating the relationship be between arousal (fear) and falling while walking. They use a VR system to simulate walking on a narrow walkway at different elevations, as high up as 30 feet. Dr. Sanders’ lab is developing an an rehabilitation/assistive exoskeleton for individuals with weakness and paralysis resulting from neurological disorders like stroke.

The summer research students visited the Observatory at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County this week where they were able to climb to the top, experience a telescope demonstration, and hear a current research talk about the observatory from undergraduate students like themselves. The UMBC Observatory Group is built of faculty, staff, and interested students who work to maintain the facility and administer its mission. The observatory is equipped with a DFM Telescope, one of the largest in the Eastern half of the United States, that has been in operation since 2000.

Chemistry senior Tamar Singman is completing her Capstone Internship as part of the Nathan Schnaper Internship Program at the University of Maryland Baltimore’s School of Pharmacy. There Tamar is taking part in an ongoing translational cancer research project aimed at the study of inhibitors of cancer-promoting protein kinases. She has enjoyed being a part of something with the potential to be hugely impactful and has been amazed by just how complex and detailed the field of cancer research is. This is Tamar’s third research experience and is still eager to try other areas, to be certain of her future path.