Bowling Green, Ky. - A career in chemistry for six high school students could take root this summer thanks to Project SEED at Western Kentucky University.
Dr. Eric Conte and Dr. Larry Byrd, both associate professors of chemistry, were awarded the American Chemical Society grant to encourage economically disadvantaged high school students to pursue career opportunities in the chemical sciences.

Dr. Conte and Dr. Byrd are working with local school districts to recruit qualified students for the summer program.

The six students will conduct hands-on laboratory research with six WKU chemistry faculty members from June 1 to July 31. Faculty mentors are Stuart Burris, Thandi Buthelezi, Eric Conte, Wei-Ping Pan, Kevin Williams and Tingying Zeng.

Each student will receive a $2,275 stipend for working on a research project for eight weeks full time this summer. At the end of the program the students will prepare a research poster to be presented at a special luncheon at WKU and at regional science fairs.

The list of summer projects at WKU include:
*Fluorescence Quenching of Chlorophyll by Titanium Dioxide Nanocomposites

*Impact of Surface Roughness on Acidity Constants of Acid-Thiol Self-Assembled Monolayers

*Extraction of Phenols using surfactant modified solid phase extraction

*Development of a new technique for speciation analyses of Arsenic and
Selenium

*Reaction of a platinum(II) bipyridine complex with methionine

*Clean Organic Molecules for Resident Wastewater Using Titanium Dioxide Nanocrystals

The summer program is funded by the American Chemical Society, the Provost’s Initiatives for Excellence, Ogden College of Science and Engineering and the Department of Chemistry.

For more on the American Chemical Society program, visit http://www.chemistry.org/ and scroll down to Project SEED in the Quickfind menu.

More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.

For information, contact Eric Conte at (270) 745-6019 or Larry Byrd at (270) 745-6018.

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