Caltech Chemistry Club
Research Opportunities
Check out small glimpses of this summer's research.
Rising senior Eva Nichols has spent the summer in Poland, and will be continuing her adventures studying abroard in France. Here's what she has to say:
This summer I did a SURF at the Polish Academy of Sciences Institute of
Organic Chemistry in Warsaw, Poland. My project was to make a
three-component system that would noncovalently self-assemble in solution
and facilitate multistep electron and energy transfer. Many of my
products were highly fluorescent (such as corroles, which are aromatic
macrocycles that display deep red fluorescence under UV), making the
chemistry particularly pleasing. On the weekends, I travelled extensively
around the country: I attended a traditional Belarusian music festival in
Eastern Poland, went swimming in the Baltic Sea near Gdansk, climbed two
mountains in a day near the border with Slovakia, and visited a dragon
cave in Kraków. I also explored Warsaw’s Old Town, went to open-air movie
screenings, and listened to the music of Frederik Chopin in the Royal Bath
Gardens. Living and working abroad had its fair number of challenges, but
I made some great friends and appreciated the opportunity to gain a new
perspective on my time at Caltech!
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Harry's Surfs
Professor Harry Gray does a wide variety of research from ways to harness solar energy, to inorganic catalysts. Rocio Mercado (2013) spent the summer working
on the development of various cobalt diglyoxime complexes for catalytic
hydrogen evolution with her mentor Mike Rose. SURFs from the Peters group, Marissa, Luis, and Justin, spent the summer working on metallic compounds for either carbon dioxide or hydrogen reduction.
Pictured above left to right:
Mateo Martinez (Gray, 2014), Luis Navarro (Peters, 2013), Justin Wolfe(Peters, 2012 Brown University), Rocio Mercado (Gray, 2013), Christine Chang (Agapie, 2013) Professor Harry Gray, Dylan Sures (Gray, 2013), Dong Woo Shin (Gray, 2013), Katja Luxem (Gray, 2014), Megan Jackson (Gray, 2013). Not pictured (photographer) Marissa Barrientos (Peters, 2012)