University Honors Program Blog
Intellectual Omnivores Unite
Students in Prof. Kung’s “Energy” class were challenged to design and construct turbine blades that would produce the most power. The designs were put into a head-to-head competition and the winning designs are pictured below!
As a senior majoring in political communication at GW, I knew I wanted to gain work experience in press and communications before graduation. Previously, I have been fortunate enough to intern in the House of Representatives, in the Senate, on numerous political campaigns, and for nonprofit organizations. This semester, I was looking to gain further experience working in high-pressure, quick-moving environments.
Most jobs and internships in political spaces have quick turnover. For someone looking to work in Congress in August, late June or early July is a normal time to go through the application process. The internship that I currently have had a more scrutinous and drawn out process. To begin my internship in September, I needed to apply in May. The application and interview process is also more intense. I had to write multiple essays, participate in many rounds of interviews, complete an extensive background check, and pass a drug test.
While I have gone through numerous interviews before, I do not remember preparing for any interview as much as I prepared for these ones. To anyone preparing for an internship interview, I suggest conducting research on the organization or person you wish to work for, critically thinking about why you want the position and how it will advance your career goals, and making a list of your own strengths, weaknesses, and obstacles. For anyone with previous internship or work experience, it is important to draw connections between your experience, and maybe even struggles, in past positions with the opportunities that this new role presents. If you do not have previous work experience, it is completely appropriate to connect educational experiences, whether that be in class or with school organizations, to the role you are applying for.
After completing this work, articulating it in interviews, and going through numerous schedule negotiations with multiple potential supervisors, I am so happy to begin my internship at the White House on September 16th.
Jade Greenberg (she/her) is a Spring 2024 graduate of GW and the UHP. She graduated with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in Biology. During her last semester at GW, we asked Jade to reflect on her time as SEAS student within the UHP, provide details on her senior capstone design project, and discuss the full-time work she had begun in New York. Read on to learn more about Jade’s time at GW and how the Honors Program enriched her experience here and beyond!
What was your experience like as a SEAS student within the Honors Program? How do you feel the Honors curriculum interacted with what you were learning through your engineering program?
Being in the Honors Program as a SEAS student is difficult, I won’t lie – not because of the course content but because of the course load. UHP SEAS students need to complete about six additional courses to fulfill program requirements; with only five open humanities and social sciences slots built into the SEAS curriculum, one semester will have an extra course in addition to the five or six that SEAS students already take each semester, including during senior year. What’s more, any AP or IB humanities credits students may have hoped would lighten the load will make no difference to the graduation timeline. And if you planned to take on a minor? Forget it unless you’re prepared to enroll in summer school.
Quick caveat: I did all these things, against my better judgment. I majored in mechanical engineering. I minored in biology. I was a member of the University Honors Program. Due to some health and scheduling difficulties, I am also graduating a year late, even with two summer
semesters under my belt. So please heed me when I say that, while it is possible, the path to the finish line is a highway, and you must be your own advocate regarding course scheduling, because mistakes can land you in some tight spots; I would know.
But I suppose that when it comes down to it, I would do it again, because I’m not sure what kind of person I would have become without being exposed to the material covered by the honors classes. I can’t imagine my inner life without, for example, having read Zhuangzi in freshman year as part of Origins, or without having studied cripistemology in Disability in the Arts.
The latter has become inextricable from my identity as an engineer. Roughly speaking, “cripistimology,” a portmanteau of “crip” and “epistemology,” concerns the lived experience of people with disabilities. One facet of this is accessibility. While I was not unfamiliar with this and other related concepts prior to taking the class (especially since I am disabled myself and have disabled friends and family), I became better equipped to recognize, speak to, and address accessibility – whether it was effective, ineffective, or entirely absent – in all parts of my life. I was able to use what I learned to help several classmates…and myself. Now, everywhere I look, I see opportunities for better designs, ways I can make society more inclusive, ways I can learn more from others and address my own biases. I truly believe this has made me a better, more socially responsible engineer, more able to use the power of my education and subsequent socioeconomic position to improve my community.
In summary, the honors curriculum gave me the chance to grow holistically. The courses provided a level of challenge that forced me to become a better writer, literary analyst, philosopher, and overall critical thinker – all scholarly aspects of myself I fear would have stagnated, if not atrophied, in a SEAS vacuum. I feel my education would have been incomplete without the UHP curriculum. To those who are considering a dual SEAS and UHP enrollment, with or without a minor, I say: do it, because you might read something that will change your life. But make sure you know what you’re getting into.
Tell us about the research you have been completing for your senior capstone design project. How has this process been?
My capstone involves converting a standard bike into an ebike using a kit while documenting what I learn in the process – which has been a challenge for me, because I started out knowing nothing about bikes aside from how to ride one. If the objective of a second- semester capstone project is to get hands-on experience with physically realized mechanical systems, a bicycle is a fitting subject to work with, comprising multiple machine elements in the drivetrain, wheels, frameset, and brakes. Since ebike conversion requires partial disassembly and reassembly of these subsystems, one becomes rather familiar with not only how they operate at a component level but also with the details of those components themselves and how to work with them.
For one thing, bicycle parts tend to require highly specific tools to remove; crank pullers and freewheel turners, for example, are only used on bikes. Subtypes of bike components require even more specific tools; crank pullers alone have three basic variations compatible with three different styles of crankset. To add yet another layer of complexity, proprietary designs of those components and component subtypes require correspondingly proprietary models of tools – i.e., a Shimano cassette requires a Shimano lockring remover.
The tools themselves must also be used in a certain way to achieve proper mechanical advantage, although these methods are simply best practice when working with hand tools in general. That trying to turn a wrench to unscrew a nut or bolt is easier done by holding the tool close to the body may be common knowledge, but I didn’t realize that holding the handles of two tools turning in opposing directions closer together made as much of a difference as it does, to the extent of turning crank bolt removal from impossible for someone of my stature to a simple affair. Knowing how to use your tools right is also a matter of personal safety, as proper ergonomics leads to better control of the forces at play and reduces the likelihood of bodily strain and sudden and/or projectile motion. Finer motor control with tools also means better assembled system performance; in reality, bike mechanics often rely on their sense of exerted forces, called “perceived torque,” which improves with experience, rather than constantly measuring every turn of the wrench. As another example of the idiosyncrasies of bike components, different manufacturers have different recommended torque values for screwing down bolts to avoid overtensioning, which can contribute to premature mechanical failure. These are details one would not know without hands-on experience but that are major aspects of designing for practical use and assembly. I learned all of this before even getting to the “e” parts of the “ebike conversion.”
I could speak much further about that, but my main takeaway from converting the bike to an ebike is that I would not recommend doing so unless you already have a bike and are not willing to build an ebike from scratch by purchasing individual components. Bikes, like all purpose-built systems, are designed to perform optimally as what they are, not as skeletons for something else. Put another way: the components of a bike are chosen with the understanding they will operate under certain cycles of stress and strain – ones a human will exert on the bike as a rider, plus a factor of safety. When that same bike with largely the same components is motorized, the operating conditions may now exceed those accounted for in the original design. So, a bike that works just fine as a bike may break as an ebike, or at least degrade exponentially faster; when you’re traveling at speed, this can be dangerous.
Certainly, doing this to an existing bike may be worth it to save money; in practice, a converted ebike that does not edge into motorcycle territory can last for a long time, if properly maintained. But as an engineer who now knows a bit more about bikes, I would choose to select the components myself and build an ebike from scratch. Not only can this be cheaper, but it also allows customization of the machine for my specific use-case, such as biking to work.
Overall, my capstone project has given me valuable experience in learning a relatively complex mechanical system from scratch through hands-on independent research, which I’ve found to be an educational microcosm of the work I do now as a field engineer.
What work are you now doing in New York? How has the experience been transitioning to a full-time job after college?
I prefer CAD (computer aided design) and engineering design work, but I was advised many times over to start my career in the field rather than go straight to R&D because some things can only be learned from experience. Having learned this lesson from my capstone project
quite thoroughly, when the construction company I interned with last summer offered me a job, I said yes.
Now, I work as a field engineer (FE) on the construction of the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) US-end converter station in Astoria, Queens. Part of New York’s plan to run on 70% renewable energy by 2030, the CHPE is an underground, 339-mile long high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line bringing hydroelectric power generated in Quebec to the New York metro area. The converter station specifically is a first-of-its-kind, grid-scale conversion of a former fossil fuel site to a zero-emission clean energy facility designed to transform the incoming DC power into outlet-compatible AC power. Those 1,250 megawatts will then flow into the NYC grid to power over one million homes, reducing emissions at a magnitude equivalent to taking 44% of cars off NYC streets. My entire reason for being an engineer has been to work on environmentalist projects like this one; I’m incredibly lucky to be working on something I care about so much right after graduating. It’s very fulfilling.
The day-to-day “living the dream” is much more routine – though I always knew it would be, and I don’t mind at all. Though my hours are long (I wake up at 5:00 am and get home around 4:30-5:00 pm), work is much easier for me than school, since I only have to focus on one “subject” at once. Possibly due to my unique background in mechanical engineering – as opposed to civil – my assigned scope of work covers all things heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC). Air-handling units (AHUs), refrigerant piping, duct and duct accessories, supports, and seismic restraints – as an FE, unlike in school, my role is not to design them but to supervise and coordinate their installation. This means dealing with the constructability and execution of the design.
Typically, an FE would be in an office off-site a year or more in advance of their part of the project being built. That entire time would be spent on just planning the operation with the project team and their scope-specific superintendent. Tasks to that end include procurement, writing work plans, hiring craft, reserving equipment, understanding the site, specs, and contract drawings inside and out, sending and processing requests for information (RFIs), redlining, doing takeoffs, scheduling, coordinating with other disciplines, and more. Then, when it comes time for their part to be built, the FE moves to a field office to execute their and their superintendent’s plan, checking quality and tracking quantities and dealing with any issues that arise when reality comes into play. However, because HVAC on this project is not self-performed and instead subbed out at multiple levels, my company decided a new hire like me could be assigned as operation FE just before field work began.
I spend one half of my day in the field and the other half in a temporary on-site office, doing many of the tasks I previously mentioned an FE is responsible for as the projects evolves over time, but mostly supervising execution of a work plan devised and more closely managed by a subcontractor…that manages another subcontractor, that manages another subcontractor. I still do everything field work entails and interact with staff and craft at all levels, but as the FE representing the company at the highest level of management, I must respect the chain of command and avoid overstepping by communicating concerns through the proper channels before taking immediate action to handle them myself. While occasionally bureaucratic, this degree of separation offers frequent opportunities to learn from other professionals by observation, smoothing my transition into my role as a new hire and recent graduate.
Going from the abstractions of academia to the concrete world of construction has been a valuable learning experience. Calling forty-plus hardware stores to procure a nonstandard size and type of stainless-steel threaded rod to solve a last-minute procurement issue teaches you things about manufacturing – and persistence…and hold music – that you won’t find in a textbook. Operating a man lift at 80 feet in the air to reach the top of an unfinished building – for your first time driving one ever – will test how much faith you have in yourself and your own judgment and capabilities.
As an engineer, you are often called upon to make decisions you must be able to justify and prove with your own knowledge and calculations; decisions you must be willing to stake your name on because they can have very real, serious, irreversible consequences for many people. When the work you do as an engineer can change lives, for better or for worse, caring about every detail is exhausting but essential. Both my company training as an FE and SEAS’ constant emphasis on engineering ethics has taught me to be wary of complacency, and I take pride in maintaining my sense of stewardship. So, even if construction isn’t exactly what I want to do forever, I feel like I am building a solid foundation for myself as a professional in my chosen field, and that’s enough for me right now.
The following blog post was written by fellow UHPer and Spring 2024 SURE Award recipient, Caroline Gilmore (International Affairs, ’25). Read on about Caroline’s research and how she plans to utilize the SURE Award funding to further expand upon her experience!
As the digital world is becoming more important than ever, it is essential to understand how audiences and influencers interact within online ecosystems. Through posts, videos, and livestreams, social media influencers set the news agenda of their followers and frame the topics they discuss. As a result, the way that people perceive and discuss political events and issues is heavily shaped by the content that they consume online. However, the extent to which social media shapes individuals’ understandings of the world around them remains unknown.
My research project “Posts and Politics” examines the relationship between people’s social media habits and their political activism in the online and offline worlds. I hope to assess the extent to which social media content affects an individual’s political activism and worldview. I will utilize a mixed-methods approach that combines qualitative textual analysis of social media posts and content analysis of data derived from semi-structured interviews. With the generous support of the SURE award, I will be able to spend my summer collecting interviews and social media data for my research in the United States and Canada.
Looking forward, I plan to write up my findings into my Senior Thesis paper. This study aims to provide policymakers and practitioners with a better understanding of the relationship between social media and political perceptions, and hopefully will provide clarity on how the audiences of influencers perceive and reflect the content they engage with online.
I designed this project as a member of the Dean’s Scholars research cohort. Through this program, I had the unparalleled opportunity to work with experts such as Dr. Maryam Deloffre and my faculty advisor, Dr. William Youmans, whose advice and constructive guidance has been pivotal to my success.
Creating my own research project has been an invaluable learning experience. I have studied American and Canadian research ethics, honed my understanding of qualitative and qualitative research methodologies, and have become proactive and persistent when looking for sources and connecting with experts in sociology and social media studies. I am so appreciative of Professors Carol and Lee Sigelman’s endowment of the SURE award, and to the University Honors Program for supporting students in research endeavors.
Interested in applying for your own SURE Award funding? Find out more about the application process here!
The following blog post was written by fellow UHPer and Spring 2024 SURE Award recipient, Radha Varadan (Biological Sciences and Dance, ’24). Read on about Radha’s research and how she plans to utilize the SURE Award funding to further expand upon her experience!
There are several iconic symbols that comprise the DC-Metro region; that define what it means to be a part of the Washington, D.C. community: the Potomac and Anacostia rivers; the gleaming monuments at night; even the protests and demonstrations that are so unique to the nation’s capital.
However, intertwined between these facets of life exists a far prettier truth. Washington, D.C. and the surrounding counties demonstrate some of the largest racial and socioeconomic disparities in terms of life expectancy, unemployment, and– arguably most critically– access to comprehensive healthcare and education.
The lack of access to comprehensive healthcare has several implications, notably with regards to cancer and cancer screening. It is no secret that vast racial disparities exist both in healthcare access as well as in disease survival rates. The American Cancer Society has years of published data, indicating that while progress has been made in advocating for these communities, Black individuals still have the highest cancer-related death rate and lowest overall 5-year cancer survival rate. In the same vein, the annual rate of lung cancer screening in Washington, DC is a mere 1.4%, with these rates even lower in low-income wards.
It is an irrefutable truth that there are systemic barriers in place that prevent equal access to healthcare, and education related to health promotion.
My project, “Where Advocacy and Healthcare Intersect: Promoting Lung Cancer Screening and Education in Low-Income Communities” seeks to collect both empirical and qualitative data regarding the number of individuals who are at a very high risk for developing lung cancer, but who experience systemic barriers preventing them from seeking treatment. As a leader of the GWU chapter of the American Lung Cancer Screening Initiative, this project aligns with the guiding principle that true change begins at the community level, and that healthcare education is healthcare empowerment.
As such, the funding from the SURE award goes towards taking one step closer to healthcare equity. The heart of this project lies in community canvassing and having genuine community conversations about the factors that contribute to lung cancer development. To this end, the SURE award has allowed my team to purchase basic medical equipment to better assess the individuals that we screen, and has supported our travel to these underserved communities. In this way, we have amassed volumes of data relating to age, gender, race, and smoking history that we have begun to translate into advocacy. Furthermore, we have been able to connect an even greater number of individuals to our partners at the GW Cancer Center and broaden our grassroots canvassing initiatives because of the SURE award.
The data that the SURE award has allowed myself and my team to collect has been– and will continue to be– shared with local political leaders, state senate members, and even national representatives that GW ALCSI has cultivated relationships with. To this end, we have successfully lobbied at the national level for numerous bills providing free cancer screening services, and to date, have connected over 100 high-risk community members with free cancer screening services.
It is my dream to see a world where every individual in our community has the right to a pain-free life, and we are one step closer to achieving this dream with the support of the SURE award.
Interested in applying for your own SURE Award funding? Find out more about the application process here!
The following blog post was written by fellow UHPer and Spring 2024 SURE Award recipient, Lydia Melka (Business with a concentration in Information Systems and Technology Management; Theatre, ’24). Read on about Lydia’s research and how she plans to utilize the SURE Award funding to further expand upon her experience!
My research project aims to address two objectives: to demystify the arcane world of theatre producing with the hopes of identifying high-potential areas for innovation and to present a preliminary business plan and prototype for my theatre entrepreneurial venture.
My thesis idea sprouted from a conversation I had in October 2023 with GWU Theatre alumni Kyra Armstrong who recently graduated from Columbia’s Masters of Fine Arts in Theatre Management & Producing. She shared how the program exposed her to a side of theatre that is completely unseen – producing. She described the process of finding investors who are willing to add Broadway or off-Broadway shows to their portfolio, the interdisciplinary excellence it takes to identify high-potential new shows, how to prepare artists for show pitches, and more. I was immediately fascinated by producers’ crucial role in shaping the theatre landscape of the past, present, and future, largely defining what’s considered ‘successful.’ When doing personal research after my conversation with Kyra, the information I found online was highly vague or inaccessible. I quickly realized that institutional knowledge and insight on this side of the theatre industry is much less public, with most information being passed by word-of-mouth.
This increased context helped me brainstorm relevant solutions, allowing me to develop my entrepreneurial concept called StageStocks. StageStocks is a theatre-based stock market that allows traditional investors to have a centralized application where they can identify both smaller-scale emerging projects and high-potential commercial projects. Additionally, StageStocks would allow regular theatre patrons to buy “stocks” or financial portions of shows at the beginning of each Broadway season, emulating the format of the New York Stock Exchange.
I believe continuing to correspond with leaders in the industry will help drive this project forward and the SURE award will allow me to do just that. My plan for the award money is to travel to NYC to correspond with leading theatre producers and companies to assess their view on the industry and gain feedback on my pitch. Additionally, I will use this money to develop UX designs for StageStocks, visualizing the most crucial features. This money will also allow me to gain access to important financial reports for theatres and other creative entities that affect producing. I am incredibly excited and thankful to the Sigelman Undergraduate Research Enhancement award for catalyzing my research and making these further steps possible!
Interested in applying for your own SURE Award funding? Find out more about the application process here!
The following blog post was written by fellow UHPer and Spring 2024 SURE Award recipient, Chris Koppi (Fine Arts, ’25). Read on about Chris’ research and how they plan to utilize the SURE Award funding to further expand upon their experience!
Since my first experience with clay as a child in the woods, I have always loved the feeling of clay in my hands. As I was exposed to ceramic arts as an adolescent, this love blossomed into a maintained practice and is the core focus of my major in Fine Arts. With the support of my professors at the Corcoran School of Art and Design, I have dedicated my first three years of my undergraduate degree to finding my voice and specialization in my artwork. As I delved into the mechanics of my art, I discovered a deep interest in the vast variety of methods undertaken to decorate ceramics, ranging from low-temperature raku firings that leave carbon impressions on your work, to long, hot wood firings that form glossy wood-ash surfaces on pieces. So far in my research, I have been working in our on-campus facilities to develop my own range of ceramic glazes that I can continue to alter and enhance within the next year of my research. I have learned a lot about the work that I can do within our facilities at GW, and I am extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to further extend my research with the SURE award. The award money will allow me to take workshops to learn new techniques from different artists and in different facilities, giving me the opportunity to expand my knowledge of decorative techniques and return to my senior year with a more complex understanding of the tools I have at my disposal. Between the work I am doing at GW and the work facilitated by the SURE award, I plan to create a range of personalized decorative techniques in my personal practice, which I will present for my undergraduate thesis show in 2025!
Interested in applying for your own SURE Award funding? Find out more about the application process here!
The following blog post was written by fellow UHPer and Spring 2024 SURE Award recipient, Zoe Carver (International Affairs and Peace Studies, ’25). Read on about Zoe’s research and how she plans to utilize the SURE Award funding to further expand upon her experience!
Hello! My name is Zoe Carver and I am a current junior in the Elliott School Dean’s Scholars Program! As part of this program, IA students get to conduct their own research projects as part of their senior thesis. I’ve spent the last year developing my ideas and this summer I will be heading to Senegal to conduct field research! I will be interviewing Mauritanian migrants about their migration and integration process into Senegalese culture, now more than thirty years after the Senegal-Mauritania Crisis that expelled thousands of black migrants south. While some Mauritanian migrants are members of ethnic groups that are represented in Senegal, such as the Wolofs, others, such as the Haratins, are not. My research will be dissecting the differences in integration between the Wolofs and Haratins, and how the ethnic communities and kinship groups in Senegal supported their integration process. To achieve this, I will be spending six weeks in Dakar this summer. The travel is not an easy undertaking, and I am so grateful to the SURE award for helping me cover the costs of travel to Senegal. I have also received the International Women of Elliott Award, the ESIA Research Award, and the GW Undergraduate Research Award. This money will support me while I conduct interviews, surveys, and learn more about the daily lives of the migrants. After I leave Senegal, I will spend the next semester writing my findings into my final research thesis. Once this is completed, I will hopefully be able to bring it to various conferences during my senior spring. There are many exciting things ahead, so stay tuned!
Interested in applying for your own SURE Award funding? Find out more about the application process here!
The following blog post was written by fellow UHPer and Fall 2023 SURE Award recipient, Paul Leoni (Environmental and Sustainability Science, ’25). Read on about Paul’s research and how he plans to utilize the SURE Award funding to further expand upon his experience!
My name is Paul Leoni and I am an undergraduate junior studying Environmental and Sustainability Science. For the past year, I have worked as a research assistant for Dr. Keryn Gedan’s coastal marine ecology lab in the Department of Biology. The Gedan Lab studies the response of dynamic tidal wetlands to sea level rise, species invasions, and nutrient availability. In addition to collecting and sorting biomass collections from agricultural fields and saltwater marshes along the Delmarva Peninsula, I have started a long-term project to create graphical abstracts and conceptual figures for the lab’s ongoing publications, conference presentations, and grant proposals. As a recipient of the GW SURE Award, I will be attending a conference on saltwater intrusion and sea level rise in coastal agroecosystems to interact with stakeholders and scientists on topics surrounding these science communication products.
Last summer, I was an intern in Dr. Kate Tully’s Agroecology Lab at the University of Maryland. Through this position, I gained invaluable research experience sampling agricultural fields, performing experiments in saltwater marshes, and conducting an independent mapping project on the risk of nutrient runoff into the Chesapeake Bay. In doing so, I learned the socio-ecological impacts of saltwater intrusion on coastal agroecosystems, including species invasions, loss of farmland, crop yield declines, and runoff of legacy nutrients. After interacting with various farmers on the Eastern Shore in their salt-damaged fields, I was also reminded of the human impact of sea level rise, which threatens lives and livelihoods in the coastal zone.
The GW SURE Award will enable me to translate these impacts to the general public through visual communication tools developed and presented at the conference. For instance, I recently created the conference’s official logo & promotional flier with original photography of ghost forests and salt-damaged corn fields. Leading up to the conference, I will design presentation materials and create a graphical abstract for a grant proposal on saltwater intrusion modeling, implementation, and engagement for rural and agricultural coastlines. At the conference, I will engage with scientists, stakeholders, and farmers, and transform their verbal and written testimonials into communication products like articles and photo essays.
In this sense, the GW SURE award will open doors for further research opportunities, such as publishing scientific illustrations for the broader Coastal Critical Zone Network, the primary research group attending the conference. These opportunities, coupled with experience at an academic conference, will provide me with the communication and research skills for asking questions to a scientific audience and translating the answers to a general public.
Interested in applying for your own SURE Award funding? Find out more about the application process here!
The following blog post was written by fellow UHPer and Fall 2023 SURE Award recipient, Chaitrali Patil (Biology and Statistics, ’24). Read on about Chaitrali’s research and how she plans to utilize the SURE Award funding to further expand upon her experience!
The chemical industry and its advancements have played an imperative role in driving sustainable development and contributing to a higher quality of life for people. However, as a result of the commercialization of hazardous chemicals, the industry has also become the primary contributor to our two current and intertwined environmental crises: climate change and chemical pollution. The industry continues to rely on chemical and manufacturing technologies that are tied to fossil-fuel feedstocks, resulting in the generation of greenhouse gasses and chemicals that have adverse effects on human and environmental health. The industry possesses the means to rebuild a more innovative sector based on renewable and circular feedstock. To achieve such a desired change in developing next-generation chemicals that are high-performing, safe, and degradable, my research focuses on creating a new, virtual repository of biobased chemicals from natural and renewable feedstocks.
I will apply advanced statistical methods and programming languages, along with machine learning, AI, and other computational chemistry tools to develop a diverse set of novel pesticides with tunable properties that are better performing and less harmful than existing products. I will assess the efficiency and safety of the newly generated molecules by targeting their effects on acetylcholinesterase inhibition, the most common endpoint of existing insecticides, and comparing the results to pre-existing chemicals. Acetylcholinesterase is an essential enzyme for neuromuscular and central nervous system functioning, therefore, understanding the molecular mechanisms that disrupt the enzyme’s processes is key to both function (e.g. in insects) and toxicity (e.g., in fish or higher mammals). Additionally, this project will leverage the principles of green chemistry to propose synthetic processes to develop these novel molecules in a sustainable and green manner, considering factors such as waste (e-factor) and atom economy (conversion efficiency). Thus, the end product of my effort will be both a vast library of virtual compounds, which can be further used by the industry to develop safer chemicals across different functional classes, as well as a proof-of-principle case study on pesticides, showing a path to replacing existing active ingredients with better performing, sustainable alternatives.
The chemical industry is seeking radical change to achieve a more sustainable future, and this research, through the help of the SURE award, allows me to become a part of the process. The award will support and primarily alleviate some of the cost associated with the presentation of my research at the Society of Toxicology (SOT) National Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah in March 2024. Being able to present my research will allow me to share the progress I’ve made in the field of green chemistry pertaining to the redesigning of pesticides, gain perspective and advice from experts, and expand my professional network.
Interested in applying for your own SURE Award funding? Find out more about the application process here!
