Students and Professors Attend Conferences and Participate in Internships

This article comes to us from the first issue of the Center for Deciphering Life’s Languages E-Newsletter. It is written by the Center’s Director and Associate Professor of Biology, Brad Goodner, and the Center’s Assistant Director Brittany Jackson ’04.

Carol Shreiner, assistant professor of chemistry, recently attended the Central Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society with two Hiram College students, Brian Yeager ’10 and Kristin Hom ’09 who presented a poster on their ongoing research project during the undergraduate poster session (Molecules as Models: Light Harvesting Devices, Brian J. Yeager, Emmy Lou Dickinson, Kristin Hom, M. James Ross, Maria Sember, Robyn Phillips, Divya Balasubramanian, Cara Citraro and Carol D. Shreiner, from Abstracts, Central Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Cleveland, OH, United States, May 20-23 [2009], pp. 171). The students also attended talks with Carol while at the meeting and found numerous professional and networking opportunities, including a conversation with the American Chemical Society President Dr. Thomas H. Lane.

In addition, as part of a Gerstacker-Gund Summer Research Award, Carol participated in a Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) workshop on initiating and sustaining undergraduate research programs. The three-day workshop was designed to help faculty and program directors facilitate undergraduate research programs across disciplines as well as provide information and helpful discussions on how to fund and grow these beneficial programs. Carol plans on incorporating the ideas and skills learned at the institute into the highly successful undergraduate research program at Hiram College, both within and outside of the sciences.

With generous support from the Paul and Maxine Frohring Foundation, in collaboration with Assistant Professor of Biology Amy Braccia, Associate Director of the James H. Barrow Field Station Laura Collins, and the Akron Zoo, Carol and is currently mentoring three undergraduate research students (Madhu Balasubramanian, Maria Martin and Kimberly Sage, all generously supported by the Paul and Maxine Frohring Foundation) for the summer in her laboratory water quality testing. Specifically, the students are developing methods for analysis of inorganic materials and developing a protocol for sampling and testing of the water from the pools of the White Wing Wood Ducks.

In addition, Carol is mentoring three additional students. Micheal Lipkin, with support from the Center for Literature, Medicine and Biomedical Humanities, is exploring microwave enhanced synthesis of 4′-aryl substituted 2,2′:6′,6”-terpyridines. Brian Yeager and Michael Mastromatteo are working on the construction of transition-metal centered macromolecular architectural design with support from the Kostansek Grant through the Hiram College Chemistry Department.