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Alum Success

Marci graduated from White Pines Collegiate and Vocational School in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and has been active during her time at LSSU in the Chemistry and Environmental Club, Investment Club, Pre-Professional Society, Honors Society, Alpha Chi Sorority, Learning Center, a member of the American Water Works Association and the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, and is a volunteer at Pathways Retirement Home. While at LSSU, she has worked at the Learning Center as a tutor and supplemental instructor, learning her advanced tutoring certification and winning the Margaret Hagg Memorial Scholarship. She was a recipient of the Ontario Honors Scholarship for four years. Marci completed her senior research by standardizing a method to fluorescently detect pharmaceuticals and personal care products in drinking water. This study helped to prepare her for her graduate studies at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi to conduct biodiesel research with Dr. Paul Zimba. She will graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Chemistry and Chemistry, magna cum laude, with minors in Economics and Mathematics, graduating as part of the Honors Society.

Marci Leanee Savage
2010 Outstanding Graduate
Environmental Chemistry

Environmental Chemistry

HAZWOPER Certification, just one of the many hands-on training opportunities available for our students

Senior Projects

Undergraduate Research

Lake Superior State University students have demonstrated once again that they can be formidable competitors among their peers when it comes to research. Recently, three LSSU chemistry students received top awards in the undergraduate part of a competition that examined student research in their field.

Megan Keway, left, eyes a sediment sample from Ashmun Bay with Professor Ashley Moerke of LSSU’s Aquatic Research Laboratory. Keway was helping Moerke’s team collect samples that are important to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study of the ‘health’ of the St. Mary’s River. LSSU’s School of Biological Science and Department of Chemistry and Environmental Science is involved in the three-year, $715,000 project.

"Our students received the top awards in the undergraduate competition," said Prof. Barbara Keller Ph.D., chair of the department of chemistry and environmental science. "They really did an outstanding job and seemed to surprise the competition."

Titles of a few of the senior research projects include:

Heavy Metals Analysis of St. Marys Rivers Sediments, Emily Grenfell
Evaluating Discharge of Flowing Artesian Wells within the Munuscong Watershed, Kris Dorcy
Oxidizing Arsenite to Arsenate Using UV Light, Andrea Troschinetz
Unsupervised Classification of Satellite Date as an Aid to Natural Community Classification in Southeastern Massachusetts, Derek Martin
Gas Well Installation Effects on Forest Fragmentation Near Atlanta, Michigan, Greg Hochstetler

"The equipment available to students in our chemistry department is unparalleled in the state of Michigan. Here, undergraduate students get to use the equipment…They don't have to compete with research assistants as they would in other universities."

--Michael Donovan
Dean,
College of Natural and Health Sciences

Student researchers collecting sediment cores on the St. Marys River.

Impact in the real world...

Rachel Claucherty-Arnold

What made Rachel's Lake Superior State experience so unique was the practical research she did with top-notch faculty. "I really enjoyed working with environmental chemistry professor Judy Westrick and biologist Deb Stai," Rachel says. "For my senior project, we evaluated a lab method for cultivating a fungus that causes infections in humans." [ more ]

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