Students take Action in the Gulf
This past Labor Day weekend, five chemistry students accompanied Professor Larsen on a tour of the coastlines of Mississippi and Louisiana to learn more about the effects of the BP oil spill. They brought back samples of the beach sand and water to study back at St. Mary's and to further their understanding of the many environmental issues facing the gulf.
Chem majors in San Francisco
From left to right: Brian, JP, Dr. Leah Eller, Rob, Nick, Danielle, Mike, Bertrand, Anita, Janice, Dr. Andy Koch, Tabitha (Now Dr. Clem), and Taylor. Emilie and Kristina couldn't make the photo.
Last Spring, 12 St. Mary's students attended the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Fransico. Eight presented their work and we all met after Tabitha Clem's ('05) talk. Tabitha was just finishing up her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley.
400 MHz Fourier Transform Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectrometer
The instrument (also known as a FT-NMR) was installed in January 2002 and will be used by students in courses across the chemistry curriculum as well as by students doing St. Mary's Projects. Acquisition of this $280,000 instrument was facilitated by a grant awarded to the chemistry department by the National Science Foundation. The instrument is used to assist in determining the chemical bonding in molecules. Students can use the instrument to verify the bonding in compounds of known composition or to determine the bonding and therefore the composition of new compounds synthesized for research projects.
