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Early on at Hamilton, Aida Shadrav ’17 had a chance to spend a summer doing research with Associate Professor of Chemistry Myriam Cotton, an experience that proved to be a catalyst.

At the time, it was a scary proposition. David Dacres ’18 had barely finished his first year at Hamilton when he signed on to spend a summer working with a chemistry research group and a professor he didn’t even know.

Ten women participating in summer research in the Hamilton College Chemistry, Computer Science and Physics departments have been recognized as Clare Boothe Luce Undergraduate Research Scholars. Funded through a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation and matching funds from Hamilton College, these awards provide stipends and funding for equipment, supplies, and travel to encourage women to either begin or continue research projects in the three disciplines.

Patrick Marris ’16, David Dacres ’18 and Erin Lewis’18 presented the results of their summer research projects during the 14th annual Molecular Educational Research Consortium in Undergraduate computational chemistry (MERCURY) conference. The conference was held July 23-25 at Bucknell University.

This summer, Jon Shapiro ’17 is working with Assistant Professor of Chemistry Max Majireck to explore molecules with potential, biological application. Shapiro hopes not only to create such a molecule, but he also hopes to develop an understanding of how best to create it.

Organic chemistry research students from Hamilton, Colgate University and Hobart and William Smith Colleges convened to report on their summer research on July 8 when Hamilton’s chemistry department hosted the annual meeting of the Summer Organic Research Symposium (SmORS).

When Marta Antoniv ’17 explains her summer research, she pulls out a pencil and paper. Antoniv is working alongside Assistant Visiting Professor of Chemistry Daniel Griffith ’07 to help identify a novel method of synthesizing nitrogen-containing, seven-membered rings, a process which may aid researchers in developing pharmaceutical drugs. Thankfully, she provided an explanation.

Sharif Shrestha ’17 is staying on campus this summer working with assistant professor Max Majireck on a project at the crossroads of biological chemistry, education, economics and entrepreneurship.

Five Hamilton students attended the 249th American Chemical Society National Meeting and Exposition held in Denver from  March 21 to March 26. Attendees were seniors Esther Cleary, Liz DaBramo, and Jordan Graziadei along with sophomores Mia Kang and Rich Wenner. Students participated in a variety of seminars representing a large breadth of chemistry and networked with industry professionals and representatives of graduate programs.

Junior biochemistry concentrator Ben Wesley received a Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research (GIAR) award for a proposal titled “Development of a Continuous Flow Reactor for Synthesis of Izidine Alkaloids.” Each year, several hundred to 1000 proposals are submitted to Sigma Xi to fund research-related expenses in many different areas of science.  The award program is highly competitive, and only about 15 percent of applications are funded.