Providing students with a meaningful undergraduate research experience is a priority at Muhlenberg College.  A collaborative research environment, where intentional partnerships are established within and outside the institution, exposes students to broad-scope problems.  Two projects are presented where students are charged with participating in, and sometimes leading, these collaborative efforts.  The first is a cross-disciplinary approach to investigating plant-insect interactions, using analytical chemistry to study secondary metabolites in the shrub Lindera benzoin.  Working with students and faculty in field ecology, molecular biology, and mathematics, we aim to better understand herbivory differences in the plant as a function of environment.  The second is a project working with scientists in industry, where an automated method is developed to characterize cell culture media using GC-MS.  Students are directly involved in using Design of Experiments, automation, and fundamental analytical tools to develop and better understand sample preparation and optimization methods for the analysis.

Collaborative undergraduate research program in analytical chemistry at a liberal arts college

243rd National Meeting (2012)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.