On most fall mornings, Mallory Gentry ’28 and Simran Magnan ’29 can be found at swim practice or lifting weights. This summer, however, they’re in a chemistry lab at Kalamazoo College, working alongside Daniela Arias-Rotondo, the Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Endowed Chair in Natural Science, on research into manganese-based coordination complexes that could one day help improve solar energy technology.
Gentry, a swimmer from Pendleton, Indiana, and Magnan, a soccer player from Northville, Michigan, are both members of Arias-Rotondo’s lab, where they’re working to synthesize new compounds that absorb visible light.
According to Arias-Rotondo, the goal is to make new manganese compounds that might prove useful for capturing sunlight—compounds no one has made before.
Magnan, who was on crutches recovering from surgery, started her summer away from the lab bench, instead digging through research articles to help chart the lab’s next steps.
“I’m more so on the computer looking at research articles, trying to figure out next steps and what different types of ligands that we could use for these new molecules,” she said.
Both students say the extended, uninterrupted stretch of summer research, compared with the single weekly session they typically manage during the school year, has let them dig deeper into their projects.
“It gives me the time to actually do more things and be able to look into it,” Gentry said.
For Magnan, the structure of summer research keeps her connected to chemistry through the offseason. “It keeps me engaged and focused to slide right back into chemistry in the fall,” she said.
Both students found their way to Arias-Rotondo’s lab well before this summer. She was the first chemistry instructor at K for both, and both say their working relationship grew out of office hours conversations that started as early as freshman year.
“I really enjoy working with Dr. DAR,” Gentry said, referring to how students affectionately address Arias-Rotondo. “She’s very good at explaining things and open to questions. She’s very easy to talk to.”
Magnan agreed.
“The way that she teaches really works well for me,” Magnan said. “She gives us a couple first steps and then has us try it on our own. Later, we’ll come back to her and ask questions because she’s always available for questions, without giving away how to do something.”
For Arias-Rotondo, having student-athletes in her lab isn’t a scheduling accommodation, it’s an asset.
“Having student-athletes in the lab is awesome because they know how to fail and recover from failure, which is so important in research,” she said.
With a research success rate she estimates at around 20 percent, resilience matters, Arias-Rotondo said.
“They already have that resilience, that willingness to just pick yourself back up and try something again,” she said, adding that athletes also tend to bring strong time-management skills to the lab. “They already have some incredible qualities that they’ve learned through sports that can translate.”
Both students see the connection clearly in their own experience. Magnan described a similar overlap between soccer and chemistry.
“Coming at it from a soccer angle versus coming at it from a chemistry angle just provides more opportunities and strategies for me to approach problems,” she said. “That skill building is probably what I’m going to remember more than the chemistry or the soccer combined.”
Arias-Rotondo said she thinks carefully about lab chemistry of a different kind: how her students work together.
“I think the lab is more like the swim team, where in most cases they have their own events, but they are still rooting for each other,” she said. “A win for one of them is a win for all of us.”
She praised both students’ work ethic and problem-solving under pressure, noting that when experiments don’t go as planned, they think about their next step and how something can work the next time.
Both students say K’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and its emphasis on undergraduate research, played a role in their decision to enroll at K. Their advice to fellow students weighing whether to pursue summer research: do it.
“It gives you time to fully focus on what you’re doing and learn, and also gives you a community in the science,” Gentry said.
Magnan echoed the sentiment: “You get to go so much more in depth and get much more individualized learning. There’s just so much growth possible.”
For Magnan, the summer has also offered an unexpected benefit beyond the science.
“Being here has been so much better mentally for me than being at home, just on the couch,” she said of recovering from her surgery in the lab rather than away from campus. “It really gives my brain something else to focus on.”
