Petroleum Research Fund grantees receive supplemental funding to build research skills

In 2022, the American Chemical Society Board of Directors approved a 5-year pilot program to offer $25,000 per person in additional funding to a future cohort of Petroleum Research Fund (PRF) grantees. The initiative aims to enhance research capabilities at undergraduate institutions by helping students build essential research skills for their academic and professional growth. The inaugural group of recipients for this funding was chosen from the spring 2024 PRF grantees. They work in nine academic departments and multiple US states, including Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Recipients include the following:

Daniela M. Arias-Rotondo of Kalamazoo College

Benjamin L. Augenbraun of Williams College

Yosra Badiei of Saint Peter’s University

Ryan K. Cole of Bates College

Erin E. Gray of Washington and Lee University

Meagan E. Hinze of Sam Houston State University

Anna Marie Luke of University of St. Thomas

Laura McCunn of Marshall University

Christopher Rumble of Pennsylvania State University Altoona

“This supplement will allow us to offer a research-based lab class for our majors, as well as update some of the instrumentation in our department,” says Daniela M. Arias-Rotondo, Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Kalamazoo College. “This class will give our students the opportunity to do real science and see themselves as scientists.”

An undergraduate research professor’s wish list gets fulfilled

Yosra Badiei, an associate professor of chemistry at Saint Peter’s University, received one of the ACS PRF undergraduate research grants this spring. Badiei, being a faculty member in a chemistry department at a small liberal arts institution, was eligible to apply for the PRF supplement to enhance her department’s research capabilities and instrument capacity.

“My students were thrilled when I told them about the possibility of getting a new microwave reactor and how it’s a game changer in our laboratory,” Badiei says.

Badiei hopes the ACS PRF supplement will be a transformative opportunity for many of her undergraduate students, allowing them to learn about more rapid, safe, and environmentally friendly chemistry and integrate it into contemporary reaction design and synthesis.

“Undergraduate students can maximize their time in the research laboratory while performing microwave-assisted synthesis, where reaction times are reduced to only a few minutes compared to long hours using traditional heating/reflux,” Badiei says.

Badiei believes that carrying out microwave synthetic chemistry on the bench can maximize a faculty’s research capacity at primarily undergraduate institutions. She cites a small footprint, reduced need for fume hood space, and the increased number of students who can participate in various phases of the research project.

Badiei’s research focuses on the development of surface-immobilized molecular catalysts on electrode interfaces and the fundamental understanding of reaction mechanisms that involve oxygen transfer from water to organosulfur molecules, which can pave the way for improving sustainable methods for the desulfurization of petroleum.

“I collaborate with the chemistry department at Brookhaven National Lab to utilize their cutting-edge instrumentation, and this generous ACS PRF supplement in our laboratory can maximize our research group’s contribution and value to the project and facilitate a broader range of synthetic experimentation that we can attempt to meet our specific goals,” Badiei says. “I am excited to explore the utilization of the microwave reactor with my team of undergraduate students, which can unlock our potential for understanding structure-activity relationships relevant to sustainable synthesis and catalysis.”