Grant Supports Inclusivity, New Chemistry Lab Experiences

A National Science Foundation grant for almost $250,000 is boosting inclusivity and access to lab experiences in the Kalamazoo College Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. 

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Daniela Arias-Rotondo, known around campus as Dr. DAR, was awarded $249,972 under the foundation’s Launching Early-Career Academic Pathways in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (LEAPS-MPS). The LEAPS-MPS grant emphasizes helping pre-tenure faculty at institutions that do not traditionally receive significant amounts of NSF-MPS funding, including predominantly undergraduate institutions, as well as achieving excellence through diversity. 

Arias-Rotondo will use the grant funding primarily to pay her student researchers—typically eight to 10 per term, known as DARlings—and to bring more research experiences into the classroom.  

While the chemistry and biochemistry department is typically not able to pay students to work in the lab during the school year, “This grant lets me do that, so my students can work in the lab instead of having to take another job on or off campus,” Arias-Rotondo said. “That’s a great way to ensure that more people can have access to this experience, as opposed to only the people who have free time they can volunteer.” 

The grant will also pay students who work in the lab over the summer (usually four or five), freeing up departmental and College funding that would normally pay those stipends. 

“Not having to pay those four or five students through the provost’s office or the chemistry and biochemistry department means we will have money for other students to do research with us here in our department, or maybe in biology or physics, so that benefits not just my group, but the department and the College as a whole.” 

The other primary focus of the grant is a re-design of the lab portion of the inorganic chemistry course CHEM 330. 

“While we have some good lab courses here in our department where students get to learn a lot of techniques and a lot of concepts, many of those lab experiences are what we call canned experiments, meaning that they are not open ended,” Arias-Rotondo said. “You are making X compound, or you’re running Y experiment, and we know what you’re going to get in the end. We have some courses where we do more open-ended labs, which the students tend to enjoy more because there’s more of the unknown and problem solving. It’s very transformative because it shows you a different side of chemistry.” 

Inspired by the work of colleagues in the department, particularly Dorothy H. Heyl Professor of Chemistry Regina Stevens-Truss, Arias-Rotondo has been able to use the grant to revamp the lab for CHEM 330, inorganic chemistry, to more closely resemble research. 

 “That’s really good for the students,” Arias-Rotondo said. “It’s more work, but it’s also more rewarding, because now they are doing things that are new, and they are making molecules that no one made before.” 

Providing access to lab experiences for more students at K truly changes lives. 

“It gives them the opportunity to see what research is really like,” Arias-Rotondo said. “It also gives them a challenge that is theirs. I’ve seen students who were very unsure of what to do—not because they are not good, but because they’ve never had the opportunity to prove themselves—and you give them this task. You support them, you tell them, ‘This is hard, but I trust that you can do it,’ and they rise to the challenge. It’s amazing to see the transformation in them. They learn a lot about chemistry. They learn a lot of techniques. They get a better idea of what a career in research could look like. And they learn a lot about themselves, about asking for help and working independently, but also working as part of a team, about troubleshooting, and they gain a lot of confidence.” 

Working in a lab also increases students’ sense of belonging. 

“They make friends,” Arias-Rotondo said. “They meet people within our department, further ahead or behind, depending on who they are. They meet more professors and students, and they feel more a part of the department, even before they declare their major. They’re like, ‘Oh, this is my place. These are my people.’ And it helps them see themselves as scientists.” 

In addition to paying student researchers and improving lab coursework experiences, the grant is paying for supplies in Arias-Rotondo’s lab, where she and her DARlings work on making compounds that can absorb solar energy and turn it into electricity using manganese, a low-cost, low-toxicity alternative to the materials currently used in solar energy conversion, which tend to be rare, expensive and difficult to mine. 

The grant will also provide a summer salary for Arias-Rotondo’s research, help fund travel for students to attend conferences and share their results, and potentially purchase or update small instruments for the lab. 

Arias-Rotondo applied for the LEAPS-MPS grant in January 2023, with the help of Director of Grants, Fellowships and Research Jessica Fowle and colleagues in the chemistry department. 

“Jess is amazing; I don’t think I could have done this without her,” Arias-Rotondo said. “I also had a lot of support from my department with writing, reading drafts, giving feedback.” 

In August, she learned she had been awarded the grant, and it started Sept. 1. Arias-Rotondo has two years to spend the money, with an option to extend it to a third year if needed. 

“It’s just under a quarter million,” Arias-Rotondo said. “Sometimes I can’t believe that anyone would trust me with that. I say this because a lot of times, I look around and think, ‘Who thought that I could do this?’ It’s a dream come true, and this grant is amazing, but it’s also like, ‘Wow, someone thought that I could do it.’  

“A lot of times students don’t trust themselves. Imposter syndrome is a real thing, and students look at me and think, ‘Oh, she’s got it. Professors know what they’re doing.’ It’s important to me to let people know that’s not true. It’s not like one day your feelings of inadequacy just lift off, and now you feel so confident that everything is great. You keep having doubts. I care about letting them know that, so if they get to grad school, or they get their Ph.D., or whenever, and they still feel like they are faking it, they still feel like they are not good enough, they know that doesn’t mean that they are not good enough. That’s just the way our brains work. You can be great and still feel like you’re not. I keep talking about that because it’s important to normalize it.” 

Experiences like those afforded by the LEAPS-MPS grant go a long way toward building students’ confidence in themselves. 

“I’m really excited for all the things that this grant is doing for students,” Arias-Rotondo said. “It gives them a lot of opportunities. You can see how excited they are when they present posters, or when they talk about research with their friends, not just learning chemistry, but also self-confidence that they can do hard things. You can see the progression. It doesn’t matter how good they were when they started. At the end of it, they are so much tighter with each other, they have learned so much, and they are so much better.” 

Two students work with chemistry professor supporting their lab experiences
A grant from the National Science Foundation will help Assistant Professor of Chemistry Daniela Arias-Rotondo pay students who work in her research lab, such as Maxwell Rhames ’25 (left) and Caelan Frazier ’23, pictured during the summer of 2022.
Chemistry students in holiday outfits surround Daniela Arias-Rotondo
Arias-Rotondo took a holiday photo before the end of term with her fall 2023 student researchers, the first group to be paid for their school-year work in her lab.
Chemistry students accompany Daniela Arias-Rotondo at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership
Arias-Rotondo is pictured with her summer 2023 lab group, (from left) Maxwell Rhames ’25, Maddie Coffman ’24, Deepa Jha ’24, Arias-Rotondo, Sam Ewald ’24, Mirella Villani ’24 and Will Tocco ’26.
Daniela Arias-Rotondo poses for a picture with a model of a molecule
Arias-Rotondo is pictured with a 3D-printed version of one of the molecules her lab has made.
Students and faculty in graduation attire
Arias-Rotondo is pictured at Commencement 2023 are graduating DARlings (from left) Shay Brown ’23, Chloe Lucci ’23, Arias-Rotondo, Mia Tucci ’23, Zekie Mulder ’23 and Caelan Frazier ’23.

Medicines for All Founder to Deliver Dreyfus Lecture

The chair at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Chemical and Life Science Engineering will deliver the Dreyfus Lecture, sponsored by Kalamazoo College’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, this Thursday. 

B. Frank Gupton—whose research group is focused on the development of continuous processing technology to facilitate the discovery, development and commercialization of drug products—will discuss public access to essential medicines in a post-pandemic environment. He is the founder of VCU’s Medicines for All institute, which focuses on improving global access to lifesaving medicines. 

Before joining VCU, Gupton’s 30-year industrial career centered on the development and commercialization of chemical processes for pharmaceutical applications. That time included years he served as the executive director of North American process development for Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, where he led the commercialization of the HIV drug nevirapine. 

Dreyfus Lecture speaker B. Frank Gupton
Medicines for All Institute Founder B. Frank Gupton will speak Thursday at Kalamazoo College’s Dreyfus Lecture.

In 2018, Gupton received the American Chemical Society Award for Affordable Green Chemistry and the Presidential Award for Green Chemistry. In 2019, he earned the Peter J. Dunn Award for Green Chemistry and Engineering Impact in the Pharmaceutical Industry from the ACS Green Chemistry Institute Pharmaceutical Round Table. Gupton holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Richmond and graduate degrees in organic chemistry from Georgia Tech and VCU. 

The public is invited to the lecture, which will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Dalton Theatre. For more information, contact the chemistry and biochemistry department at 269.337.7007. 

Student Openly Shares Her Research to Tackle Chagas Disease

When scientists perform research, what they discover is often proprietary and kept in close confidence until results are published or patented. Erin Somsel ’24, however, would rather share her research with the world.

Somsel, a biochemistry major at Kalamazoo College, is working on her Senior Integrated Project with Associate Professor of Chemistry Dwight Williams and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, which engages top students from about 25 global institutions in research through the Open Synthesis Network. Their combined efforts provide shared, open-source information, allowing entire teams to look into the molecules and compounds that present the most promise for developing medicines that fight neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).

NTDs are a diverse group of 20 conditions that disproportionately infect women and children in impoverished communities with devastating health, social and economic consequences. Many are vector-borne with animal reservoirs and complex life cycles that complicate their public-health control. Plus, drug companies often don’t see the benefits of helping impoverished communities that are less profitable.

The open-source initiative, though, is more interested in cooperative work and says its participating researchers have developed 12 treatments for six deadly diseases, potentially saving millions of lives.

“That’s appealing to me because there are scientists from everywhere that work on this project,” Somsel said. “I think that’s a cool way of getting everyone involved in the scientific community to come up with a solution to a big problem.”

Somsel hopes her work will contribute to a treatment for a seventh affliction, Chagas disease. The inflammatory condition is most common in South America, Central America and Mexico with rare cases in the southern United States. It spreads through the feces of a parasite often called the kissing bug, as it damages the heart and other vital organs when the bug bites humans.

“A lot of the work on the drugs for Chagas disease was done in the 1960s, so there’s an urgent need for new ones,” Somsel said. “Chagas has two phases, acute and chronic. The acute phase has common symptoms such as fever, headache and fatigue, but if it turns chronic, it can cause cardiomyopathy and serious gastrointestinal problems. The drugs only work in the acute phase, so if it’s not caught, it’s life-threatening. There’s also no vaccine against Chagas disease.”

In the lab, IC50 values represent the concentrations at which substances inhibit parasites through biological and biochemical processes. The hope is to find IC50 values through molecules and compounds that warrant further research.

“I’ve been working on optimizing our processes and I got the procedure down so that we could start generating some of the compounds that we wanted to,” Somsel said. “The next step is to continue building the library of the chemicals we want to make and send them into the Open Synthesis Network, where it will test them for the activity against the parasites.”

Erin Somsel researching Chagas disease in the lab
Erin Somsel ’24 hopes her research will contribute to a treatment for Chagas disease, an inflammatory condition most common in South America, Central America and Mexico with rare cases in the southern United States.
Erin Somsel researching Chagas disease
Somsel first was introduced to NTD research when she was on study abroad in Costa Rica. While there she studied Latin American health care systems in an environment that challenged her to grow.

Somsel first was introduced to NTD research when she was on study abroad in Costa Rica. While there she studied Latin American health care systems, including Costa Rica’s, in an environment that challenged her to grow.

“I think K has a unique culture of pushing students beyond their comfort zone,” she said. “I don’t think that I would have had that experience at any other place.”

Now, with that experience—plus a K-Plan that involves student organizations such as the Health Professions Society and the Sisters in Science, athletics through the women’s soccer team, and academics as a teaching assistant for introductory chemistry—Somsel feels like she’s prepared to one day succeed in medical school, where she will continue pursuing lab research. Hopefully, that will involve further research involving NTDs.

“Success for me used to be going to class, getting A’s and stuff like that,” Somsel said. “Then, I started working in the lab. I found that there are many little things that build up to success. When I had a reaction that wasn’t successful, it was easy for me to say, ‘I was unsuccessful today.’ But Dr. Williams helped me put it in a different perspective. He could say, ‘No, you were unsuccessful in generating this compound, but you were successful in realizing this solvent didn’t work, so we can try something else and move forward.’ I think that has really shaped me as a student. It helped me understand that if at first something doesn’t work for me, I’m going to keep trying and persisting to find something that does.”

K Receives $2M Grant for Dow Science Center, Electrical Infrastructure

The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation is continuing a legacy of philanthropy toward higher education and Kalamazoo College with a $2 million grant that will support K’s science facilities. 

The College’s Dow Science Center, completed in 1992, is named in recognition of another generous grant from the Dow Foundation. At the time of its completion, the 33,290-square-foot science center introduced K students to the latest technology and equipment in biology and chemistry instructional programs and offered a practical and attractive environment for teaching, learning and research. The mission of the facility continues today, and this new grant will help the College maintain the center’s excellence as it replaces the roof, retrofits the lab airflow management systems throughout the building, upgrades the fire system and installs new carpeting.

Additionally, the grant will help fund an ongoing project to modernize the College’s electrical grid. This initiative is set to be completed by August 2025, with the College actively engaging in fundraising efforts to bring it to fruition. The Dow Foundation’s support will help move this project forward, allowing the College to ensure a reliable and sustainable energy infrastructure across the entire campus.

Student works in Dow Science Center
A $2 million grant from the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation will benefit students and help Kalamazoo College maintain the Dow Science Center by replacing the roof, retrofitting the lab airflow management systems throughout the building, upgrading the fire system and installing new carpeting.

For nearly four decades, the Dow Foundation’s commitment to STEM programing at K has benefitted generations of students. Its latest grant adds to its legacy, building upon previous support that funded two endowed professorships and enabled the replacement of a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer, allowing students to analyze and identify chemical compounds and structures with state-of-the-art equipment.

“We’re grateful for the Dow Foundation’s generous support, which will enable students, faculty and staff to continue pursuing science and research that benefits the world,” Kalamazoo College President Jorge G. Gonzalez said. “The College has a long history of success in the sciences and this grant shows a continued and shared optimism in the exceptional work of our students, and what they will accomplish long after they leave K.”   

The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation was established in 1936 for religious, charitable, scientific, literary or educational purposes for the public benefaction of the inhabitants of the City of Midland and the people of the State of Michigan.  

“The State of Michigan has always benefited from strength in higher education,” said Ruth Alden Doan, president and trustee of The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation. “The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation is proud to have played a role in that strength and continues to value the high performance of Kalamazoo College as a liberal arts college with excellence in chemistry and other sciences.”

Family Science Night Fun Brings Community to K

Students participate in Family Science Night
Kalamazoo College students demonstrate how oranges can be used to pop balloons during Family Science Night.
Students participate in Family Science Night
K students teach community members about acid/base chemistry by writing hidden messages.
Family Science Night 14 (2)
K students helped K-12 students explore density by using oil, water and Alka-Seltzer to make lava lamps.

About 160 community members, consisting of kindergartners through 12th graders and their families, came to campus to engage with fun, hands-on experiments at Family Science Night on May 18, hosted by students from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Department of Biology at Kalamazoo College.

The Family Science Night “Science Surrounds Us,” conducted at Dow Science Center and supported by funding from the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement, featured 15 interactive science booths with 39 undergraduate student volunteers and a four-student planning committee, consisting of Crystal Mendoza ’23, Elizabeth Wang ’23, Maxwell Rhames ’25 and Onora Lancaster ’23. The event gave K students the opportunity to practice their science communication skills while nurturing children’s interest in the sciences.

K students showed Family Science Night attendees how to make DNA bracelets using the DNA sequences from various animals.
Students participate in Family Science Night
K students helped Family Science Night attendees explore the freezing-point of water by making ice cream.
K students showed taught community members about the life cycle of plants by planting herb seeds for kids to take home.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Josie Mitchell joined the faculty at K last fall and had been thinking since about ways she could connect her students with the community. Science outreach events with K-12 students had been the way she loved doing similar community engagement as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“One of the skills I hope my students develop is to be able to communicate the scientific concepts they learn about in class in an exciting and accessible way to the public,” Mitchell said. “As students planned their science booths, we talked about the scientific topic each group hoped to convey and then designed hands-on experiments that K-12 students would do. Ultimately, we all learn better and have more fun when we’re actually doing something versus being told about it.”

Stickers helped K-12 students keep track of which experiments they saw
Kids used stickers in a Family Science Night passport to keep track of which experiment stations they visited.
K students assist community members
·        K students showed Family Science Night attendees how to extract the iron content from cereal using magnets
Students tend to a booth showing homemade volcanoes
K students helped community members investigate acid/base chemistry with baking soda and vinegar to make mini-volcanoes.

The K students developed ideas using household ingredients that ranged from experiments such as creating miniature volcanoes with baking soda and vinegar, exploring the freezing point of water by making ice cream and learning about the life cycle of plants by planting herbs, to creative activities such as removing the iron from cereal with magnets, extracting DNA from strawberries and investigating rubber polymers by using oranges to pop balloons.

“The planning committee and I worked together with groups to hone their scientific concept and think creatively about how students could get their hands wet and learn through experimentation,” Mitchell said. “For example, one group was learning about acids and bases. There is a chemical in red cabbage called anthocyanin that serves as a pH indicator and it will change color depending on how acidic or basic the solution is. K students prepared a red cabbage pH indicator solution and then had K-12 students add it into acidic and basic solutions and observe a color change. Many of the parents would also engage with the science booths, and I believe events like this can bring out the inner child-like curiosity in all of us.”

Students participate in Family Science Night
K students helped Family Science Night attendees investigate the polarity of molecules using milk, food coloring and detergent.
Family Science Night
Family Science Night attendees explored protein folding using a computer program and origami.
Family Science Night 9
K students taught K-12 students and parents about genetics through taste inheritance by using a PTC test.

The K community made the night possible with involvement from the planning stages all the way through cleanup after the event.

“We had a lot of help, especially with funding from the Center for Civic Engagement and donated prize items from K Admissions and the K Bookstore,” Mitchell said. “I communicated with (CCE Director) Alison Geist throughout the planning stages, and (Associate Director for Community Partnerships) Teresa Denton tapped into the CCE’s amazing network of local schools and programs to invite community members to the event.”

Student organizations such as Sisters in Science and the College’s chapter of the American Chemical Society also assisted.

“I think our student involvement was the most rewarding part,” Mitchell said. “I’ve already known how amazing our students are, but they went above and beyond to make this event possible. I wanted to start smaller and more focused this year to see how it went, and next year I would love to invite other K students from science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines to host a booth.”

Family Science Night 4
K students showed Family Science Night attendees how to test the pH of household items using cabbage water.
K students helped K-12 students explore density by using oil, water and Alka-Seltzer to make lava lamps.
Family Science Night 13
K students taught community members how to extract DNA from strawberries during Family Science Night.

Family Science Night Experiments

  • Magnetic Munchies: extracting iron content in cereal using magnets
  • Fold It: exploring protein folding using a computer program and origami
  • Dancing Drawings: learning about density by watching dry erase drawings float
  • Butterfly Wings: creating colorful butterflies using coffee filter paper chromatography
  • Mini Volcanoes: investigating acid/base chemistry with baking soda and vinegar
  • Strawberry DNA: extracting DNA from strawberries
  • Ice Cream: exploring the freezing-point of water by making ice cream
  • The Lifecycle of Plants: planting herb seeds and taking them home to watch them grow
  • Magic Milk: investigating polarity of molecules using milk, food coloring and detergent
  • Lava Lamps: exploring density using oil, water and Alka-Seltzer to make lava lamps
  • Oranges and Balloons: investigating rubber polymers using oranges to pop balloons
  • Bitter or Bland: exploring the genetics of taste inheritance using a PTC test
  • DNA Bracelets: making DNA bracelets using the DNA sequence from various animals
  • Acid or Base: testing the pH of various household items using cabbage water as a pH indicator
  • Spies in Disguise, Invisible Ink: learning about acid/base chemistry by writing hidden messages

Volunteer Feedback

  • “I had so much fun running this booth and it was fun to be able to teach kids about chemistry. I feel like everything was running smoothly with some rush of people, but it was manageable.”
  • “This was a wonderful time! I heard phenomenal things from parents as they came out!”
  • “I had so much fun and would love to do it again! I loved seeing all of their reactions to our volcanoes!”

Parent Feedback

“The Family Science Night was absolutely wonderful. My children had the best time! My son is very interested in science, but my daughter has approached it more cautiously, although last night really made her more interested in it so I am grateful to you all!”

K’s Banner Year Elates Faculty, NSF Fellows

Kalamazoo College STEM-related academic departments are celebrating a banner year as the overall number of current students and alumni receiving National Science Foundation (NSF) graduate research fellowships reaches four, the most since 2016.

The Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) recognizes and supports outstanding students who pursue research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited U.S. institutions. A five-year fellowship covers three years of financial support, including an annual stipend and a cost-of-education allowance to attend an institution along with access to professional-development opportunities.

About 2,000 applicants are offered a fellowship per NSF competition in fields such as chemistry, biology, psychology, physics and math. This is the first year since 2013 that two current K students, Claire Kvande ’23 and Mallory Dolorfino ’23, have earned awards. Two alumni also have earned fellowships, Cavan Bonner ’21 and Angel Banuelos ’21.

“The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship is a highly competitive program that is only awarded to about 16% of the applicants, who represented more than 15,000 undergraduates and graduate students across all STEM fields,” Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Assistant Professor of Chemistry Blakely Tresca said. “Approximately 2,500 awards were offered this year across all STEM fields and the vast majority of them go to students at large research universities and Ivy League schools. It is rare to see more than one or two awards at an undergraduate-focused college, particularly at a small liberal arts school like K. It is exceptional for schools in the GLCA (Great Lakes Colleges Association) to have one award in a year, and four awards is a truly outstanding accomplishment for these students.”

Claire Kvande ’23

Kvande has been a double major in physics and chemistry with minors in math and French at K. She credits faculty members such as Dow Distinguished Professor of Natural Science Jan Tobochnik and Associate Professor of Physics David Wilson, along with a wide range of courses, for preparing her to receive an NSF fellowship.

“I like the nitty gritty of sitting down and figuring out how to approach a problem within physics even though it’s often hard,” she said. “I really like work that is grounded in real-world problems and it’s part of why I’m interested in the subfield of condensed matter. There’s a lot that stands to be applied to technologies that I think could improve our world and help a lot of people.”

Kvande will attend the University of Washington this fall, where she plans to extend her Senior Integrated Project (SIP) work, which examined how charge-density waves relate to superconductivity within condensed matter.

“Superconductivity is a tantalizing physics concept,” she said. “If we could realize superconductivity at room temperature, it would allow us to do a lot with energy saving and revolutionize how we use electricity. There are schools of thought that say charge-density waves would be helpful in achieving that and others that say it would be hurtful. Since we really don’t know how superconductivity works, this is worth investigating so we can hopefully better understand this powerful phenomenon.”

NSF fellow Claire Kvande presenting her SIP
Claire Kvande ’23 will attend graduate school at the University of Washington as a National Science Foundation fellow.

Mallory Dolorfino ’23

Dolorfino, a computer science and math double major, also will attend the University of Washington, where they will pursue a doctorate in math.

“I didn’t really like math until I came to K,” Dolorfino said. “I took calculus in high school and I was just not going to take any more in college until one of my senior friends told me when I was a first-year student to take linear algebra. I took that and Calculus 3 online during the first COVID term and I just kept doing math, so I switched my major. It’s not like other subjects because you can work for hours and not get anything done. That’s frustrating at times, but it’s fun to understand it enough to prove things logically.”

Dolorfino credits several faculty members for their growth and success at K, leading to their NSF opportunity. They include Tresca, who helped students keep track of their NSF application timelines and materials; Associate Professor of Mathematics Michele Intermont, who provided letters of recommendation and application assistance for research opportunities and graduate school; and Assistant Professor of Mathematics Stephen Oloo, who provided invaluable feedback regarding their research proposal and many conversations about math.

Dolorfino remains in contact with a professor they worked with in a math-focused study abroad program in Budapest. The two of them conducted a monthlong research project in algebraic number theory, which is a foundation in applications such as encryption and bar codes. Their NSF application proposes group theory work, which is what she based some research on last summer at Texas State University. They hope their NSF work will help them become a college professor one day. “There are a lot of math institutions on the West Coast and specifically in the Northwest, so I will have really good connections there,” said Dolorfino, who agreed the award is an honor. “I was grateful for the people at K who helped me apply.”

NSF fellow Mallory Dolorfino
Mallory Dolorfino ’23 will attend graduate school at the University of Washington as an NSF fellow.

Cavan Bonner ’21

Bonner has spent the past two years working as a research staff member in industrial and organizational psychology at Purdue University. His NSF fellowship will take him to another Big Ten school.

“My area of research involves personality development and how personality changes over the lifespan,” he said. “It’s a pretty small sub field and there are only a few doctoral programs where you can study the topic with an expert. The University of Illinois is one of them.”

Bonner further hopes the fellowship will propel his career toward a tenure-track job at a research university. He said K helped prepare him well for that trajectory through a broad range of subjects, not only in psychology, but in adjacent fields such as sociology and statistics. Bonner also credits his experience working as a research assistant for Ann V. and Donald R. Parfet Distinguished Professor of Psychology Gary Gregg, and Associate Professor of Psychology Brittany Liu for training him in skills that he frequently uses in his research work after graduation. 

“I was drawn to personality psychology because it provides an integrative framework to study many of the research questions I have about human development, aging and change over time,” Bonner said. “My SIP and research assistant experiences at K helped me realize that I could address these questions from a personality perspective, but my professors also exposed me to so many other fields and perspectives that inform my research. I primarily identify as a personality and developmental psychologist, but ultimately I hope that this fellowship helps me contribute to the broader science of aging and development.”

Portrait of Cavan Bonner
Cavan Bonner ’21 will attend the University of Illinois as an NSF fellow.

Angel Banuelos ’21

Banuelos, a biology major and anthropology/sociology minor at K, is in his second year at the University of Wisconsin, where he said he studies genetics—specifically the construction of the vertebrate brain and face—under an amazing mentor, Professor Yevgenya Grinblat.

“Live beings are built by cells that are informed by DNA,” Banuelos said. “At the beginning of embryonic development, the cells split into groups. One of those groups is called the neural crest cells. Those cells go on to contribute to a whole bunch of things such as pigment cells in the skin, and cartilage and bones in the face. My project is trying to understand how neural crest cells contribute to stabilizing the very first blood vessels of the developing eye.”

Ultimately, when his graduate work is finished, he would like to steer his career towards education.

NSF fellow Angel Banuelos in the lab
Angel Banuelos ’21, a newly-named NSF fellow, is in his second year of graduate school at the University of Wisconsin.

“I would like to bring research opportunities to people who don’t have higher education experience,” Banuelos said. “I would imagine starting with programs for middle schoolers, then high schoolers and adult learners. I want to be part of research addressing community problems and conducted by the people who live there.”

Banuelos credits inspiration for his career goals to the many mentors he had at K. Natalia Carvalho-Pinto, former director of the intercultural center, and Amy Newday, who provided guidance in food and farming justice, served as role models for applying theory to meet material needs.

“In my NSF application, I described meeting community needs as a central component of my scholarship,” he said. “Natalia and Amy are people who literally fed me while I was at K. They saw the student and the human. They handed me books, handed me plates, even welcomed my family. During a very difficult transition to grad school, they were there for me. When I’m a professor, I want to be like them. I’m grateful for the growth opportunities I had at K through the Intercultural Center and food and farming.”

‘It doesn’t happen every year’

Faculty members as a whole across STEM departments are taking great pride in these K representatives earning fellowships as it speaks to the quality of students at the College and their studies, especially as the number of recipients stands out.

“At K, it is exciting when even a single student wins a fellowship, and it certainly doesn’t happen every year,” Professor of Physics Tom Askew said. “It’s special to have four in one year.”

A Bippy on Their Radar Helps Scientists Find K Students

Bippy with students and guest 2
Caelan Frazier ’23 (left) and Shay Brown ’23 (right) took Bippy to the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) Conference in Orlando, Florida. They posed here with Merck Senior Scientist Dr. Devin J. Swiner.
Shay Brown with Bippy at a poster presentation
Brown ’23 receives some help from Bippy in making her poster presentation.
Shay Brown and Caelan Frazier with a guest and Bippy
Frazier, Brown and University of California Irvine Graduate Research Assistant Alissa Matus pose with Bippy at the NOBCChE Conference in Orlando, Florida.

His name is Bippy and he’s the Squishmallow that’s making Kalamazoo College famous.

Squishmallows are soft, squishy, cuddly stuffed animals that come in a variety of colors and sizes, and their popularity has grown exponentially over the past year or so. The K Hornet versions of the plushies—available at the College’s bookstore—are round and orange with thin, black arms; antennae; beady eyes; a friendly smile and a K on their belly.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Daniela Arias-Rotondo, known affectionately to her students as Dr. DAR with her lab students called DARlings, uses a K version named Bippy as her lab’s mascot. He’s helping K gain recognition and students gain opportunities in their field.

“I bought it right away last summer when the Bookstore restocked them because I thought it was the cutest thing,” Arias-Rotondo said. “I thought it would be fun to take him places and he made his debut at the fall ACS (American Chemical Society) conference in Chicago last year. I tweeted beforehand that I was going to have this little guy with me, and I asked, ‘Who else is going to be at the conference?’ It was really fun because a lot of people were excited about it.”

Arias-Rotondo’s lab develops molecules that absorb energy from light while transforming that energy into electricity. Bippy gets his name from 2,2’-bipyridine, which is a key part of [Ru(bpy)3]2+, a ruthenium compound nicknamed “Rubpy.” Ruthenium is a rare and expensive metal.

Rubpy “is a molecule that has been key in the development of photophysics and photocatalysis because it works so well,” Arias-Rotondo said. “One of the problems with it is that it’s very expensive, so we keep trying to find alternatives that are cheaper, greener and more Earth friendly. Yet we use it for now, so Bippy’s name is a nod to a molecule that has had a huge impact on my career and on the field.”

In the meantime, Arias-Rotondo’s reach on Twitter has allowed chemists from all over the world to see Bippy’s pictures and learn about Arias-Rotondo’s and her students’ accomplishments.

“It’s a way for me to say on Twitter, ‘You know me and these are my students,’” Arias-Rotondo said. “I can invite others to go talk to them even if they’re at a conference when I’m not. It’s definitely generating visibility, and if it generates visibility for me and the College, it benefits my students, too, because at the end of the day, they are the ones who need the most opportunities.”

Last winter, Arias-Rotondo wanted Caelan Frazier ’23 and Shay Brown ’23 to take Bippy to the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) Conference in Orlando, Florida. Frazier, a Kalamazoo native, plans to attend graduate school at the University of Michigan and he credits K for preparing him for that with benefits such as small class sizes in a supportive environment and a study abroad experience in Northern Ireland.

Five students and a professor posing with Bippy under a sign that says Proud Chemist
Shay Brown ’23 (from left), Crystal Mendoza ’23, Lindsey Baker ’24, Assistant Professor of Chemistry Daniela Arias-Rotondo, Maxwell Rhames ’25 and Caelan Frazier ’23 pose with Bippy at the American Chemical Society Conference in Indianapolis.

Bippy, however, Frazier was unsure of—at least at first.

“At the time I thought, ‘I don’t really know why you want me to take him, but I’m going to trust you on this one,’” he said.

Any remaining skepticism melted away when reputable scientists approached Frazier’s and Brown’s poster presentations to learn about their work, and of course, meet Bippy.

“He ended up being very helpful,” Frazier said. “We sat at a table with a few of the people that Dr. DAR told us to talk to, and immediately three of them said, ‘Oh, my gosh, it’s Bippy from Twitter! I know who you guys are.’ It was an incredible conversation starter.”

Since then, Frazier, Brown, Lindsey Baker ’24, Crystal Mendoza ’23 and Maxwell Rhames ’25 have attended the spring ACS conference in Indianapolis with Bippy to similar fanfare for the cuddly plushy, not to mention their work.

Frazier poses with Bippy at his poster presentation
Frazier poses with Bippy at his poster presentation.
Abby Barnum '23 with Bippy at her poster presentation
Abby Barnum ’23 poses with Bippy during a recent conference.

“Obviously, Bippy doesn’t directly influence the work that we do, but he very much helps us look forward to presenting it,” Frazier said. “He has shown me that when you go to these conferences and you’re meeting some of the biggest names in science from around the world, they’re still people. And when they see this stuffed animal you’re carrying around, 90% of them are going, ‘Oh, that’s cute. I wonder what that’s about’ and ‘I want to learn more about that.’ I think it’s really important to have that comfort.”

And as beneficial as Bippy is now for her students, Arias-Rotondo hopes his influence will continue in the years ahead.

“We could just have a unicorn or a random stuffed animal, but institutional visibility is important, so the addition of the brand right on Bippy helps a lot,” she said. “I want other students to also get those opportunities and I want people to say, ‘Oh, Kalamazoo College. They put out good chemistry students.’” 

Mentors Help Chemistry Major En Route to Scholarship, Research Abroad

Crystal Mendoza outside Hoben Hall
Crystal Mendoza ’23 stands in front of Hoben Hall during her first Michigan snowfall in fall 2019.
Crystal Mendoza in Vienna
Crystal Mendoza ’23 took a solo trip to Vienna, Austria, during her summer 2022 research internship at Karslruhe Institute for Technology in Germany.
Crystal Mendoza and Julia Ghazal in biochemistry class
Crystal Mendoza ’23 (left) builds polypeptide bonds to see the bond structure with Julia Ghazal ’22 in a biochemistry class during fall term 2021.

For the second year in a row, a Kalamazoo College chemistry student has been awarded the prestigious Priscilla Carney Jones Scholarship.

Crystal Mendoza ’23 is the 2022 recipient of the scholarship through the American Chemical Society. The scholarship provides a minimum of $1,500 funding toward tuition, books and lab fees for a female undergraduate student majoring in chemistry or a related discipline and beginning her junior or senior year.

Mendoza and the 2021 recipient of the scholarship, Ola Bartolik ’22, have both worked in the lab of Blakely Tresca, the Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

When Mendoza received the scholarship announcement, her reaction was, “Wow, oh my goodness, I actually got it,” she said, “because I really didn’t think I would get it. It was a little bit later than when they announced it the previous year, and in the back of my mind, I didn’t think they would give it back-to-back to someone from the same college.”

Once the news sank in, she called her mom to celebrate and sent Tresca a message.

“I was really surprised two students from the same school got the scholarship back-to-back, especially since they only award one each year,” Tresca said. “I’m not surprised, though, that Crystal earned it. She has worked really hard in research and at school, while at the same time doing so much for the department and the community at K helping mentor the next generation of chemists.”

The scholarship has both practical and intangible benefits for Mendoza. Not only does it cover Mendoza’s out-of-pocket costs for tuition, books and fees for her last year at K, it also provides a feeling of belonging.

“It was rewarding that the Women Chemists Committee posted the announcement on Twitter, Facebook, all their socials,” Mendoza said. “Seeing my face and the significance of the scholarship and what it means to the community of women chemists made me feel like I’m actually a part of this community. I feel like I can continue in the field of chemistry with support and inclusion.”

Crystal Mendoza and Isabel Morillo attend a softball game
Crystal Mendoza ’23 (right) and Isabel Morillo ’23 attending a K softball game to support their roommate Lucy Hart ’23.
Chemistry mentors helped Crystal Mendoza achieve opportunities in places such as Cologne, Germany
Crystal Mendoza ’23, pictured on a trip to Cologne, Germany, is currently working on a research internship at Karlsruhe Institute for Technology in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Finding her community and niche has been a journey for Mendoza. Arriving on campus in fall 2019, she intended to declare a biology major and follow the pre-med track. Her first term, however, she found herself not taking any biology courses and struggling through Chemistry 110. Her STEM journey could have ended there had it not been for Jeff Bartz, professor of chemistry and chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Bartz invited Mendoza to come to his office hours and introduced her to Alex Cruz ’21, a chemistry major and fellow Los Angeles native. Cruz agreed to tutor Mendoza—the start of a mentoring relationship that continues to this day.

Crystal Mendoza holding a bucket and a cell phone in an elevator
Chemistry student Crystal Mendoza ’23 snaps a selfie in the elevator at the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology in Germany, where she is completing a summer research internship. Mendoza was on her way to buy propionic acid from the stockroom.
Crystal Mendoza
Chemistry student Crystal Mendoza ’23 has been awarded the prestigious Priscilla Carney Jones Scholarship.

“She wanted to succeed,” Bartz said. “She was willing to ask for help and that’s sometimes the hardest thing for all of us to do, especially as a beginning college student among your peers where you want to look like you have it all together. I had enough of a relationship with her, because of the kind of place K is, to have a sense of what help she needed and who in our program could provide that help to her.”

Cruz introduced Mendoza to Sukuma Dow, a peer-led organization for underrepresented students in STEM, her first year at K. She has been an active participant ever since, serving last year and this coming year as a group leader.

“I did feel discouraged at some points my first year,” Mendoza said. “After taking some biology courses, I didn’t think STEM was for me. I doubted myself and it wasn’t until I got into the support group and talked more with Alex, Dr. Bartz and Dr. Tresca that I got myself out there and found what I truly enjoy. It has been a journey. I found what I like, I like being in a lab, and it took a lot of conversations, tough love and discipline to see that.”

Bartz, Cruz and Tresca all encouraged Mendoza to apply to Research Experiences for Undergraduates summer programs through the National Science Foundation. She ended up performing research on electrocatalysts for carbon dioxide reduction at the University of Southern California, where she scrapped any lingering thoughts of med school and committed wholeheartedly to a chemistry major and future goal of a doctorate in chemistry.

“I came back from that summer and immediately started looking for opportunities for this summer,” Mendoza said. She prioritized research abroad, as the COVID-19 shutdown had pushed her to delay courses she wanted to take in person until her junior year, taking study abroad off the table for her.

As a result, in mid-June, Mendoza arrived in Karlsruhe, Germany, to take part in a Research Internship in Science and Engineering (RISE) through the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), or German Academic Exchange Service. RISE offers undergraduate students the opportunity to complete a summer internship at a top German research institution. Students are matched with a host university or institute according to their area of interest—Karlsruhe Institute for Technology for Mendoza—and DAAD provides students a monthly stipend to help cover living expenses.

German professor Kathryn Sederberg helped Mendoza arrange housing, and the DAAD funding is supplemented by the Nahrain Kamber and Ralph Griffith Endowed Student Research Fellowship benefiting female science students at K. Together, the two funding sources fully cover Mendoza’s living expenses and provide her with a small stipend as well.

Mendoza will remain in Karlsruhe until early September, conducting 12 weeks of research into photocatalysts for carbon dioxide reduction for her Senior Integrated Project.

“I’m learning even more than I thought, because I thought there would be some repetition from last summer, but it’s totally different,” Mendoza said. “I’m doing more synthesis, learning to read scientific literature for myself, and it’s more hands on.”

Catalysts are substances that increase the rate of a chemical reaction without undergoing any permanent chemical change. Electrocatalysts speed up electrochemical reactions, while photocatalysts absorb light to create energy that accelerates chemical reactions. Mendoza’s research involves attempts to artificially re-create photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbohydrates.

“We take what’s happening in nature and try to find the optimal way to do it in solution in the lab,” Mendoza said. Currently, she is building three major components of the process—a photosensitizer, an electron donor and a catalyst—in different ways. Once she has built the library of different catalyst and photosensitizers, Mendoza will test the different components to see which perform the best for carbon dioxide reduction and turnover numbers.

At Karlsruhe, Mendoza has two Ph.D. student mentors, whom she describes as “helpful” and “very sweet” and who have given her independence to conduct her own project in the lab.

“At first, it was a little intimidating, but once I got the hang of it, it’s the best lab experience,” Mendoza said. “I’m just in awe at every reaction that I do, whether it’s successful or not, because I did it myself.”

Research into catalytic reduction of carbon dioxide could eventually have implications for reducing environmental pollution in the world, a topic of interest for Mendoza. Regardless, her time in Germany is proving enlightening.

“I had a really different perspective on what I thought the lab would be,” she said. “I thought it was going to be down to business, only doing experiments, let’s only talk about chemistry. My mentors have shown me otherwise. You can have fun, you can sing, you can dance, or you can enjoy a bottle of soda outside the lab.”

In addition to research and classes, Mendoza has worked as a chemistry teaching assistant.

“I really enjoy that,” she said. “It gives me more time in the lab and a chance to connect with people who want to do STEM and say, ‘Hey, you’re good at this, have you considered this major?’”

In 2021, K started a PRIME (Promoting Research, Inclusivity, Mentoring and Experience) Scholars program, funded by a National Science Foundation grant, and Bartz asked Mendoza to be a peer mentor for the 10 incoming first-year PRIME students.

“It’s been amazing seeing their progress from when they first came to campus and I met them during orientation,” Mendoza said. “It’s always rewarding after every meeting, one-on-one or in a group, to think that I was once in their place, not knowing what I wanted to do, and now being so accomplished in my discipline and helping them get there, too. I’m grateful that Dr. Bartz thought I was the right person for that.”

From mentee to mentor, doubt to confidence, Mendoza is thriving at K with guidance from strong mentors, support from peers, and opportunities for exploration and growth. With one year left at K, she’s looking ahead to her own future while extending a hand back to those coming behind her.

“We talk about certain students as having figured it out,” Bartz said. “What got them here is not what will get them through here. Early on, Crystal recognized that she didn’t have it figured out and was willing to ask for help. Now she’s one who figured it out and is willing to share that with others.”

Science Society Honors K Professor with Teaching Award

Regina Stevens-Truss Holds a Test Tube While Teaching Two Students for Science Society Award
Regina Stevens-Truss will receive the 2023 American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Award for Exemplary Contributions to Education.

Regina Stevens-Truss, Kalamazoo College’s Dorothy H. Heyl Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, is the recipient of the 2023 American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) Award for Exemplary Contributions to Education.

The ASBMB is a professional organization of science, one of the largest of its kind in the world. The award, instituted in 2005, credits an individual who encourages an effective teaching and learning of biochemistry and molecular biology while demonstrating a commitment to pedagogical engagement and teaching innovation. As one of 14 professionals from around the world being honored by the ASBMB, Stevens-Truss will give a presentation about her teaching and learning trajectory at the society’s 2023 annual meeting, Discover BMB, in March in Seattle.

“Being selected for this honor surfaces all of my humble bones,” Stevens-Truss said. “Never in my wildest dreams did I foresee being nominated and even less being selected for this award. My imposter syndrome persona is in full bloom right now, and I can hear all of the voices that tell me regularly ‘accept a compliment, Regina.’ This award means the world to me, I am honored and humbled, and can’t believe the list of pioneers that my name will be listed with.”

Stevens-Truss served on the Minority Affairs Committee (MAC), now known as the Maximizing Access Committee, as well as on the Education and Professional Development (EPD) Committee of the ASBMB, where she was part of the steering committee that created the concept-driven teaching strategies that laid the foundation for the organization’s certification exam. She also was the principal investigator in 2012 of a National Science Foundation grant that supported a STEM K-12 outreach initiative by the society called Hands-on Outreach to Promote Engagement in Science (HOPES – see pages 37-38 at this link).

Since joining the faculty at K in January 2000, Stevens-Truss has been teaching Chemical Reactivity, Biochemistry, Medicinal Chemistry and Infection: Global Health and Social Justice. Current research in her lab focuses on testing a variety of compounds (peptides and small molecules) for antimicrobial activity. She is also the College’s director of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Inclusive Excellence grant, which was awarded to K’s science division in 2018. In 2016, she received K’s highest teaching honor, the Florence J. Lucasse Lectureship for Excellence in Teaching.

Stevens-Truss earned a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University and a Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry from the University of Toledo. She held two fellowships at the University of Michigan between 1993 and 1999, one of which was a lectureship in medicinal chemistry.

“I joined the faculty at K in a department with the BEST team of educators and students that I could have asked for,” she said. “From day one, my chemistry and biochemistry department colleagues have supported every hair-brained idea I have come up with. They make me think hard about teaching by always keeping our students front-and-center in our conversations on this topic. My students have pushed me to be better, to care more, to guide them through their journey of learning and growth.  And, without all of these folks, this award would not have happened. This award is not just for me, but for all who have been in my life in the last 20-plus years. You know who you are!”

Signing Day Spotlights Students Headed to Graduate School

Amanda Morrison Signing Day
Amanda Morrison ’22
Annie Tyler '22 Signing Day
Annie Tyler ’22

Bright careers await the seniors graduating soon from Kalamazoo College, including those in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Six of them were spotlighted recently during a Signing Day, featuring some of the scholars who are moving on to graduate programs this fall.

Much like student-athletes would gather to sign letters of intent when selecting their collegiate destinations, the chemistry students met to officially declare their educational next steps. The event was first envisioned by Subi Thakali ’21, Alex Cruz ’21 and Angela Ruiz ’21, who desired an academic answer to the accolades a student-athlete might receive during a Signing Day. Professor of Chemistry Jeff Bartz organized it that first year and even borrowed a photography backdrop from the athletics department.

Now, grad-school bound chemistry students from K receive some brief fame through social media as their pictures and destinations are featured in the department’s Twitter and Instagram accounts. Suja Thakali ’23, a leader in the Higher-Level Education in Dow student organization, planned much of this year’s event with Bartz again borrowing a backdrop. The students among the honorees on the Signing Day were:

Lia Schroeder
Lia Schroeder ’22
Grace McKnight on Signing Day
Grace McKnight ’22
  • Annie Tyler, who is heading to Yale University for a Ph.D. in organic chemistry
  • Amanda Morrison, who will join the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis for a master’s degree in medicinal chemistry
  • Grace McKnight, who will attend the Grainger School of Engineering at the University of Illinois for a Ph.D. in theoretical and applied mechanics
  • Lia Schroeder, matriculating at Rutgers University for a Ph.D. in biophysical chemistry
  • Faith Flinkingshelt, moving on to the University of California-Irvine for a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry
  • Ola Bartolik, who is seeking a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Michigan.

The chemistry department expects the tradition to continue next year alongside students from the biology department. But for this year, Tyler’s destination is especially noteworthy as she will be the first Heyl scholar from K to be awarded a Heyl Fellowship in more than 15 years. Heyl scholars are high-achieving high school graduates from Kalamazoo County, who receive full-tuition scholarships to attend K in a STEM program or Western Michigan University’s Bronson School of Nursing. K grads who successfully matriculate to Yale are eligible to apply for the Fellowship.

Ola Bartolik
Ola Bartolik ’22
Faith Flinkingshelt
Faith Flinkingshelt ’22

Tyler—a chemistry and religion double major, Kalamazoo Central High School graduate and Kalamazoo Promise scholar—said Yale wasn’t a graduate school on her radar until she realized the possibility of attending on a Heyl Fellowship.

“When I visited the campus and chemistry building, Yale was the only place I visited where I didn’t have an ‘I like this, but here’s this issue I have with it’ feeling,” Tyler said. “I liked everything about it. I liked that it was in a new place, and that they seemed really excited about recruiting students. I could very easily picture myself at Yale for the next five years.”

The Heyl Fund will cover up to four years of Tyler’s tuition and fees along with a stipend in the Fellowship. For the upcoming academic year, those costs add up to more than $80,000.

“I’m really honored that I was chosen for the Heyl Scholarship and the Heyl Fellowship,” Tyler said. “The scholarship allowed me to attend Kalamazoo College in the first place. To see that my last four years of work at K have allowed me to become a Heyl Fellow makes me really proud and excited to continue the work.”