American Chemical Society selects 10 semifinalists for Chemistry Champions contest

The American Chemical Society (ACS) today named 10 semifinalists in its Chemistry Champions contest. The contest aims to find and train promising science communicators—perhaps even find the Carl Sagan of chemistry. Undergraduate, graduate, and early career chemists and chemical engineers entered the contest by submitting 2-3 minute videos describing their work and why they wanted to be the Chemistry Champion. The semifinalists were selected by a panel of 11 judges from 27 video applicants.

The 10 semifinalists and their video titles are:

Jennifer Apell, graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "An Environmental Benefit of Plastic"

Geoff Dubrow, graduate student at the University of Minnesota, "Understanding Whisky Chemistry"

Tien Nguyen, Ph.D., recent graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "Finding Better Ways to Build Chemical Bonds"

Jennifer Novotney, graduate student at Cornell University, "Frameworks for the Future"

Tierra Range, undergraduate student at Centenary College of Louisiana, "Solar Cell Research"

Ashlee Robison, undergraduate student at Fort Lewis College, "Preventing Honeybee Decline"

Alexis Shusterman, graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley, "CO2 Monitoring in HD"

Shane Stone, undergraduate student at Syracuse University, "Biofuel Catalyst Research"

Krista Wilson, Ph.D., assistant professor at Wingate University, "Chemistry of Frogs to Develop New Methods of Pain Relief"

Shannon Woodruff, graduate student at Southern Methodist University, "Chemistry to Better Deliver Medicine Inside Cells"

The semifinalists will be flown to the ACS National Meeting in San Francisco for closed-door competition on August 9. Five finalists will then be selected to present their research to a live public audience in San Francisco on Sunday, August 10. For more details about the contest, visit http://www.acs.org/chemchamps. All eligible videos entered in the Chemistry Champions contest are available via the YouTube playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLG7h7fPoH8LQwsyZL_2gPR4pqP5zLKkX.

Provided by American Chemical Society