Summer was not a laid-back break for many of the students and faculty who put the sciences in the liberal arts and sciences at Kalamazoo College. It’s traditionally the time of year when students and professors often collaborate in Dow Science Center labs to advance research projects that could lead to important discoveries for the world.

Take the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, for example.

“During the school year, our time to do research is limited,” said Daniela Arias-Rotondo, K’s Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Endowed Chair in Natural Science, an assistant professor of chemistry. “And while we keep making progress, the summer is when we can really dig deep. When students have uninterrupted time to do this work, we can start looking at more questions. We can go down some rabbit holes that maybe during the school year we avoid because we have less time. It’s fantastic for the students and a transformative experience for them.” 

Student participants often work full-time, with most earning stipends that allow them an immersive experience that builds critical thinking and technical skills. Many of the projects will form the basis of students’ Senior Integrated Projects (SIPs). Some may even result in publications in academic journals or clarify career paths and strengthen graduate school applications. Students also present their findings at national conferences and in peer-reviewed publications, gaining recognition that often extends well beyond campus.

This kind of high-impact learning was on full display this summer through the work of five faculty from chemistry and biochemistry and about 25 students in their labs. The faculty included Assistant Professor of Chemistry Daniela Arias-Rotondo, Associate Professor of Chemistry Blake Tresca, Kurt D. Kaufman Associate Professor of Chemistry Dwight Williams, Dorothy H. Heyl Professor of Chemistry Regina Stevens-Truss and Assistant Professor of Chemistry Cecilia Vollbrecht.

Daniela Arias-Rotondo

Arias-Rotondo’s synthetic inorganic chemistry lab worked to find ways to convert light into electrical or chemical energy. In the 2024–25 academic year, that work—funded by a National Science Foundation grant—led to national recognition for her along with one of her students, Maxwell Rhames ’25, as they examined what alternative metals could possibly be used to make things like solar panels less expensive. Will Tocco ’26, Bea Putman ’26 and Kate Suarez ’28 continued that work this summer. 

For Putman, the work represents her SIP. She said first-row transition metals such as manganese could hold the solutions she’s seeking because the metals are cheap and Earth abundant. Tocco, meanwhile, praised Arias-Rotondo—affectionately known to her students as Dr. DAR—for her guidance and leadership in the lab.

“A lot of people imagine their boss as a big, scary person who rags on them when they do something wrong,” Tocco said. “Dr. DAR is not like that at all. If something goes wrong, it simply went wrong. It’s all about falling forward and asking, ‘What did you learn? What can you do next time instead?’ It’s very instructive, and as a student, I get to learn a lot. Even when I fail, there’s always a bright side.”

CJ Aldred ’26 and Ava Schwachter ’27 also worked on a project for which Arias-Rotondo earned funding, this time through the ACS Petroleum Research Fund. For this project, molecules they designed acted as catalysts and unlocked chemical transformations through a process called photoredox catalysis. In this case, the transformations involved petroleum byproducts—the waste left behind after crude oil is extracted—and how those byproducts might be used.

Schwachter, much like Tocco, credited Arias-Rotondo for empowering students.

“When you make a mistake, she will ask, ‘Did you die?’ and ‘What did you learn?’” she said. “The mindset of her lab is safety first. That’s the top priority. The next priority is learning and then whether we get the product we expected. We want to move toward our goal, but the top priorities are safety and learning. It’s easy to feel high pressure because you want to succeed, but because the focus is so much on learning and safety, I feel like there’s less.”

Blake Tresca

In 2024, Tresca earned a National Science Foundation grant that provided three of his lab students with a stipend this summer while also covering the cost of a robot that made their research faster, easier and safer. Together, Jack Bungart ’26, Max Plesscher ’26 and Caleb Moore ’27 used organic compounds called diene amines to create peptoid nanomaterials, which are molecules showing promise in detecting harmful substances in water or people, for example.

In an independent project, Devi DeYoung ’26, a Heyl scholar from Portage, synthesized and computationally modeled peptoids to look for relationships between structural sequences and exhibited properties.

Even high school students occasionally have opportunities at K thanks to Project SEED, the American Chemical Society’s effort to provide lab experiences to underrepresented students. Jocelyn Suranyi ’28 in the past had been one of those SEED representatives and this summer mentored high school senior Rowan Hagenbuch in Tresca’s lab.

The two did similar work, but on different projects. Suranyi synthesized peptoids that will be used in the lab of Stevens-Truss. Hagenbuch synthesized peptoids that could help remove PFAS chemicals from water. PFAS are widely used in various consumer and industrial products due to their ability to repel water, grease and stains.

“I enjoy doing this work because it helps me develop more lab skills and working with people,” Hagenbuch said. “In a high school lab, I don’t necessarily get to experience what I’m doing this summer, so it helps me build my confidence.”

Suranyi was thrilled with her opportunities to perform research and with a chance to get to know Hagenbuch.

“I know what it’s like to come in as a random high school student and she’s understanding so much more than I did,” she said. “I look at her and I think how happy I am that she’s doing so well. It’s fantastic to work with her.”

Suranyi plans to formally declare a chemistry major and Chinese minor during her sophomore year, which begins this fall. She also enrolls as a guest student at Western Michigan University, which allows her to perform with the Bronco Marching Band.

“I’ve talked to people at Western and I’ve told them I’ve been doing lab research for the past three years,” Suranyi said. “They say, ‘That’s a crazy good experience. I can’t believe K lets so many undergraduates do that and without prior experience.'”

Dwight Williams

You might’ve heard that too many cooks in the kitchen can spoil a dinner, but the same theory will never apply to the Williams lab at K.

Twelve students, the largest of any lab in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry this summer, worked with the associate professor of chemistry fondly known by students as Dr. D.

Those students combined their efforts on three projects, Williams said. One project designed novel antibacterial agents to hopefully make headway against antimicrobial resistance. Another designed molecules that might one day treat neurodegenerative diseases by inhibiting a specific pathway. The last designed new molecules that might be useful for treating Chagas disease and diabetes.

Alyson Ramillano ’26, a Posse Scholar from Los Angeles, was one of the students working in the first group. Specifically, she investigated the natural product Aquamyacin G, an antibiotic showing promise to see whether it can be made synthetically.

“Right now there is a need to identify novel antibiotics because antibiotic resistance has been an ongoing benefit crisis, but there isn’t a lot of financial incentive to invest in antibiotic discovery,” Ramillano said. “From my understanding, that motivated the Williams lab to look into an affordable synthetic that would lower the barriers of entry for further research into this compound.”

Ramillano added that she never would’ve thought she would be doing such research when she started college. Eleanor Andrews ’26, a biology major, didn’t originally plan on doing research this summer in the Williams lab either.

“I was going to do some shadowing at Bronson Hospital because I want to be a nurse,” Andrews said. “But a soccer teammate of mine worked in this lab last year, and I went and listened to her present her SIP. I fell in love with the idea of working here. I loved her project with how she was working to find things that fight antibiotic resistance.”

Andrews added that her lab work consisted of mixing two molecules together to see whether she can create an antibiotic.

“This excites me because it’s really hands on,” she said. “I’m a hands-on kind of person. The thought of sitting back isn’t really for me, so I’m trying find a solution by working on it and figuring out an interesting puzzle.”

Regina Stevens-Truss

The Stevens-Truss lab worked in drug-discovery testing to help figure out whether science might be able to develop new antibiotics. She said her students explore by investigating whether antimicrobial peptides that are about 26 to 30 amino acids in length can kill or prevent bacteria from growing. They also analyzed the hybrid compounds synthesized in the Williams lab and the peptoids developed in Tresca’s lab to see whether they can kill bacteria.

“We’ve started working with a whole subset of bacteria known as ESKAPE pathogens,” Stevens-Truss said. “Each letter in ESKAPE stands for a different microorganism that has at least one antibiotic resistance. We know that you can go to the hospital and take penicillin because it cures certain things. But there are some penicillin-resistant bacteria that penicillin won’t kill, and many are now becoming resistant to more than one antibiotic. We’re looking at compounds now to see which of them can still kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”

Three of Stevens-Truss’ students—Emily Dalecki ’26, Morgan Paye ’26 and Anoushka Soares ’26—are hoping to eventually go to medical school with such research being vital to their admission applications.

“Research is just something I’ve always enjoyed,” said Soares, a Heyl scholar from Portage. “It’s not something I had a lot of experience with outside high school, so I was curious about it when I got to K. As a first-year student, Dr. Truss had me in General Chemistry II and asked me if I wanted to do research. I told her that would be perfect for me because I was getting more interested. I thought I was going to be a biologist until Dr. Truss made that offer. I thought it was fantastic, all-encompassing and something I wanted to look into more.”

Paye said she was in a science enrichment program last year making this summer a big change for her thanks to a better overall experience and more collaboration.

“Dr. Truss had offered me a spot in her lab so I could start my SIP research when I had never actually had her as a professor before,” Paye said. “In fact, it was the first time we had ever met, so it was amazing that she had offered me the spot. We blend super well together.”

Dalecki said K is a place where students aren’t just numbers, so faculty know students’ names and are interested in student growth. Dr. Truss, however, is special.

“I felt like Dr. Truss really wanted me to become confident in my lab work and as a chemist,” she said. “I really appreciated that. I’ve had a lot of things going on outside of K that some of my professors didn’t notice. But Dr. Truss noticed that and cared about me. She wanted me to come out of my shell and believe in what I’m doing.”

What Students Said
About Summer Research

“I would say that working in the lab provides the best opportunity for undergraduates to know themselves better as workers and scientists. I’ve learned that I work best when I’m in the lab constantly and not taking breaks outside just so I can get in the flow of the work. It’s also important to build relationships with your classmates. I think biochemistry can be very intimidating as a major, but if you get to know the people you’re working with well, you have a built-in group of friends for the summer.”

Julia Kozal ’27

“I took Organic Chemistry this year with Dr. D. He helped me challenge myself in a way I never have before and do things I never thought I would be able to do. When I heard about his research, I was intrigued and excited to keep learning in that way. I learned how to problem solve in his class and it has continued in the lab. I’m learning life skills that I don’t think I would get anywhere else.”

Landrie Fridsma ’27

“I think being in the lab has helped me develop a new appreciation for patience. It gives me a different kind of determination when I have to figure something out. I sometimes fail, but I can figure out how to keep getting back on track, and with having other good students in the lab, it’s a low-pressure environment.”

Anni Schnell ’26

“I’m familiar with this department and all the professors are wonderful. Their projects are super interesting and definitely have implications for the future. It’s fulfilling to be a part of something where long-term applications are important. It’s also a good time. You get to know the professors during the year, and then you spend the summer with them. It’s a really good way to have references in the future, because you spend so much time with them. They know you really well. They can speak to your skills. It’s important to have these people for your future as well beyond K.”

Olivia Cannizzaro ’26

“I’ve been playing lacrosse since I was in second grade, and I had a teammate in high school who just graduated from K. He told me to reach out to the coach to see if I could play here. It’s definitely a great opportunity to be here because we get to do research. I’m a chemistry major, so with this research, I can get ready for grad school and do my SIP. It’s tough to do that during the academic year. With lacrosse, we have fall ball through about Week 7, and we’re practicing three to four times a week with other classes on top of that. We then start practicing for the spring sport in January and we go all the way through April, so the summer is a perfect time to do research where we can. We don’t have to worry about other academics and we can focus solely on research.”

Jake Asnis ’26

“I applied to a bunch of small schools similar to K, but specifically, I really liked that K has an excellent track record when it comes to sending students to medical and graduate schools. Like a lot of small schools, you can really get to know your professors here. I particularly love my professors in the chemistry department, they’re all just wonderful to be around. Sometimes it’s frustrating because the chemistry isn’t easy, but there’s always help if you look for it. All my peers are incredibly kind, and everyone is struggling together! I never feel like I’m completely on my own.”

Isaac Duncan ’27

“I thought being in a lab this summer would be a great opportunity to get a jump start on learning how college labs work and how I can better plan for time management. I like how forward Dr. D is with his lessons. I appreciate how he doesn’t sugar coat things, because I think that can sometimes cause overconfidence in some areas or make you not want to better yourself, so he allows me to grow as a person and as a scientist.”

SEED student Dorian Roberts;
will attend Eastern Michigan
University in fall

“It’s rigorous, but I think it’s interesting. I’m at college to learn and I want to be proud of my SIP. I want to feel like I put a lot of work into it, and that I used my degree and the brain that I earned from my college degree to put forth this pinnacle of everything that I’ve learned. I wanted to make sure that it accurately relayed all the work that I’ve been doing throughout my years here.”

Bea Putman ’26

Teige Bredin ’28 and Luke Barnum ’27 have gone from taking their first chemistry course, General Chemistry I, to working in Vollbrecht’s lab in less than a year. Alongside Vollbrecht, they wanted to develop an instrument that can analyze their materials and quickly test how successful they are at capturing pollutants from water or the air.

Some of the pair’s work might have seemed like engineering and physics as much as it did chemistry.

“There’s a bunch of critical thinking where they need to ask themselves, ‘How do we make this instrument work?’” Vollbrecht said. “It’s not just a recipe to follow. We have to figure out how to make these parts fit together, optimize parts, and troubleshoot unexpected problems. They’re learning how to think on their feet while putting together different aspects of their research. We’re not just using our chemistry skills, but physics and math. My students are learning a lot of coding, which I think is fun and a good skill for the future, too.”

Bredin began the summer by using an optical setup and spectrometer to separate light into individual wavelengths. Barnum optimized the mirrors by attempting to make them smaller and even more reflective, so the wavelengths could tell them more about the materials they analyze.

The summer culminated in the annual Summer Science Symposium, where students presented their research to peers, faculty and the public. It provided a moment of pride and reflection, along with a celebration of the countless hours spent in the lab to give the faculty a reason to feel good and the students to feel accomplished.

“I was just talking with students about K versus a big school,” Tresca said. “We have a lot of spots for students per capita. In the senior class alone, at least half of our majors are doing research for their SIPs this summer in chemistry or biochemistry. Comparatively, big schools have a very small percentage of their students in labs. That makes us special.”

“Students take ownership of their projects during summer in a way that we don’t see at the very beginning, because as they keep going, they start realizing that they have agency,” Arias-Rotondo said. “They start making their own mistakes, their observations and learning from those mistakes as they come up with alternatives, possible solutions and things they want to try. That’s when they really take ownership of their projects and when they really grow as scientists. They stop being a pair of hands, doing what we tell them to do, and they really become scientists.”