Peter C. Breen

Peter C. Breen, 22, a chemistry undergraduate student at Pennsylvania State University, died on March 11 while traveling in Cesena, Italy.

Born in Hershey, Pa., Breen received a B.S. in chemistry with honors (posthumously) from Penn State last month.

He served as an undergraduate researcher in Philip C. Bevilacqua’s biological chemistry laboratory focusing on RNA chemistry, ribozyme cleavage kinetics, and computational chemistry. Breen was also an undergraduate teaching assistant and tutor in Penn State’s chemistry department. He is credited with two research articles.

At Penn State, Breen received the Eberly College of Science Braddock Scholarship and the Schreyer Honors College Scholarship. As an American Chemical Society SCI Scholar, he completed an R&D internship in Momentive Performance Materials’ personal care division in Tarrytown, N.Y., in 2012.

Breen began his chemistry studies at Cumberland Valley High School in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He earned a second-place award in the regional Chemistry Olympiad held by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Section of ACS (SEPSACS) in 2009. The following year, he was the SEPSACS Outstanding Senior in Chemistry awardee at his high school. Breen was a student member of ACS, joining in 2010.

In 2013, Breen spent a semester studying at the University of Freiburg, in Germany. He became a young ambassador for the German Academic Exchange Service.

He is survived by his parents, Kevin and Renee, and his brother, Scott.