Many students choose to include a research experience or internship as part of their undergraduate education. These experiences allow you to explore a research problem in depth under the guidance of a member of the faculty. You can apply what you've learned in classes and labs and ask and answer questions that no one else has yet addressed. Many students feel that research was the most valuable part of their academic life at college. In addition to the possibility of being a co-author in a published scientific journal article, these experiences give you something concrete to talk about in interviews for jobs or graduate school. In fact, one of the most common interview questions is to talk about a project that you worked on as a student. Interviewers can assess your technical knowledge, your communication skills, and your enthusiasm for science very quickly.

There are several research groups working in the chemistry department at Wittenberg and we have placed students in summer and academic-year internships as well.

Examples of research projects at Wittenberg:

• Computational studies of protein folding with Dr. Anderson

• Electrode modification and electron transfer kinetics studies with Dr. Cline

• Spectroscopy studies of silver colloids with Dr. Dudek

• Spectroscopic and computational studies of organic molecules with Dr. Houseknecht

• Structure-activity relationships for antioxidants with Dr. Hanson.

Our students present their research findings at conferences including the MERCURY Conference on Computational Chemistry, Pittcon, and local, regional and national ACS meetings.

Recent publications with Wittenberg student co-authors:

Dudek, R.C., Anderson, N.T.; Donnelly, J.M., Comparing the Spectral Temperature of Incandescent and Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs, The Chemical Educator, 2011, 16, 76-78,

Cline, K. K.; Baxter, L.; Lockwood, D.; Saylor, R.; Stalzer, A., Nonaqueous synthesis and reduction of diazonium ions (without isolation) to modify glassy carbon electrodes using mild electrografting conditions. Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry 2009, 633 (2), 283-290. 

Ellison, M. D.; Morris, S. T.; Sender, M. R.; Brigham, J.; Padgett, N. E., Infrared and computational studies of the adsorption of methanol and ethanol on single-walled carbon nanotubes. Journal of Physical Chemistry C 2007, 111 (49), 18127-18134.