WKU Student Presenting Research
Poster At National Event

August 20, 2003

Bowling Green, Ky. - A Western Kentucky University graduate student will present her research poster at a national meeting next month in Las Vegas.

Stephanie Rachelle Smalley of Campbellsville is studying with Dr. Thandi Buthelezi in Western's Chemistry Department. The topic of Smalley's poster is "The Absorption and Emission Spectra of Complexed and Uncomplexed Dibenzo-18-crown-6 Ether (DBC)."

Smalley will be one of six graduate students from Kentucky presenting posters at the Sept. 7-9 EPSCoR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) meeting.

Her poster involves the crown ether, a large molecule that can be complexed with a metal ion, such as potassium. The research is exploring the trends in absorption, how long the molecule fluoresces in a solvent and the effects of various solvents on the fluorescence.

EPSCoR, a national program launched in 1979 by the National Science Foundation, is designed to help states compete for research and development funding and includes the U.S. departments of Energy, Defense and Agriculture, NASA, Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institutes of Health.

For more information, contact Cathleen Webb at (270) 745-3457. More WKU news is available on the World Wide Web at www.wku.edu. If you'd like to receive WKU news via E-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.

-WKU-