Undergraduate Research Program

One of the most unusual aspects of Barry’s Chemistry program is the opportunity for all students to do research. Students participating in research projects as well as those attending the regular teaching labs use state-of-the-art instrumentation including:

• AA (Atomic Absorption Spectrometer)
• Capillary Electrophoresis
• Electrochemical Analyzer
• FT-IR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer)
• GC (Gas Chromatograph)
• GC-MS (Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer)
• HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatograph)
• Fluorescence Spectrometer
• Magnetic Susceptibility Balance
• 300MHz NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectrometer)
• Polarimeter
• Thermal Cycler
• UV – Vis Spectrometer

Research opportunities for students are outstanding. Chemistry faculty members have received more than $2 million in grants over the years to purchase research instrumentation and to support student researchers. During that time faculty and research students have published over 20 papers on their research results in refereed scientific journals as well as at local, state, and national scientific conferences. Several recent graduates have gone on to pursue graduate studies in chemistry with full teaching assistantships or full graduate research fellowships to pay for their graduate studies in chemistry.

Research students also have opportunities to do collaborative research off campus. During the summers two or three minority research students work with Dr. Fisher’s collaborator, Dr. D’Aniello, on a research project at the Zoological Station in Naples, Italy. Other research students have gone to other universities including the University of California at Berkeley, Stanford University, and Georgia Tech.