Professor Bill Feighery's Sabbatical Research

This fall semester, our inorganic chemist, Dr. Bill Feighery, is working in the Jaffe Lab at the University of Notre Dame. The research involves two-dimensional layered metal cyanide materials referred to as Hofmann clathrates. These compounds feature alternating square planar metal cation centers (typically Ni, Pd, Pt) and octahedral centers (such as Fe, Co, Ni). The goal is to incorporate atom transfer molecules thereby forming a hybrid material that can be subsequently subjected to stimuli to induce formal atom transfer. 

2024 Indiana LSAMP conference

The 2024 INLSAMP Student Research Symposium was held in Indianapolis this year on Friday, September 20. Once again, IU South Bend had an impressive showing of student research from Biological Sciences, Biochemistry, and Chemistry. Our students, who mostly conducted their research over the summer, presented their research to students and faculty members from various colleges throughout Indiana.  They were accompanied by Professors Clark, Clear, Marr, and Muna. You can find abstracts of their poster presentations here under Poster Session #2. Congratulations to all of the students for their hard work and encouraging results.

Mentor: Tom Clark (Biology)

• Mia Guerra, “Tracking Moth Diversity Trends: Analyzing Urban vs. Natural Habitats Across Two Years”. 
• Guillermo Cardenas, “Environmental Conservation of Moths”. 

Mentor: Dr. Deb Marr (Biology)

• Emily Barerra, “Comparing soil physical/chemical properties and biodiversity in Pinhook and Howard Park in South Bend, Indiana”. 
• Perla Diaz, “Comparison of Soil Ecosystem Function Across South Bend Urban Tree Nursery Sites”. 

Mentor: Dr. Yilei Qian (Biology)

• Benjamin Robinson, “Quantification of Polyphosphate in Bifidobacterium using Fluorescence and Non-fluorescence Dyes”. 
• Ashley Rojas Romero, “Acid Tolerance and Resistance to Oxidative Stress in Oral Bifidobacterium and Streptococcus Species”. 

Mentor: Dr. Shahir Rizk (Biochemistry)

• Zahra Aljuboori, “Engineering a Fluorescent Biosensor for Real-time Monitoring of Ornithine in Bacterial Cultures”. 
• Joseph Malkovsky, “The brilliance of periplasmic binding proteins: illuminating the future of nutrient monitoring in bacterial culture”. 
• Alissa Sonnenberg, “Engineering a biosensor for lactate, a marker for inflammation and bacterial fermentation”. 
• Morgan Underdue, "Constructing Fluorescent Biosensors to Understand Bacterial Metabolites".

Mentor: Dr. Grace Muna (Chemistry)

• Megan Conn, “A Course-Based Undergraduate Research Project: A Correlation Study of Lead Levels in Contaminated Soil Samples with Source, Home Location, and Age”. 
• Edwin Cortez, “Developing a Sensitive Electrochemical Sensor for Detecting Cortisol using a Gold Electrode Modified with Gold Nanostructures”. 
• Luke Johnson, “Electrochemical Detection of 3-Nitrotyrosine using a Gold Electrode Modified with N-hydroxysuccinimide Ester Gold Nanoparticles”. 

Mentor: Dr. Kasey Clear (Chemistry)

• Moses Nyirongo, “Reactions and Electrochemistry of Naphthoquinones and Sulfide”. 

IUSB Chemistry/Biochemistry research in the news

As usual, our research labs were bustling with activity and students this summer. Undergraduates from various majors - and even a few high school students - worked as analytical chemists, synthetic chemists, biochemists, engineers, and even computer programmers in the labs of Professors Kasey Clear, Grace Muna, and Shahir Rizk. The unusual bit was that research in our department seemed to be all over the news this summer on WSBT (channel 22). First there was a Hometown Living interview with Professor Shahir Rizk and then there was a two-part series as part of Operation Education. The latter featured Biological Sciences major Elizabeth Hayes and Biochemistry major Alissa Sonnenberg talking about their research and goals. Sonnenberg is pictured above in a still shot captured from the second video link of the WSBT broadcast. Please check out and share these three exciting, informative, and short news items using the links below. 

Hometown Living interview 

Operation Education: Important summer research happening on quiet IU South Bend campus

Operation Education: Women still underrepresented in STEM fields