SUNY Fredonia students keep learning in summer research experiences with Chemistry faculty

State University of New York at Fredonia Associate Professor Allan Jay Cardenas, together with three students from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry will conduct research at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) this summer.

Dr. Cardenas has been selected again to participate in the highly competitive Visiting Faculty Program funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science.

In the program, Dr. Cardenas will be joined by Sawyer Oppenneer of Saratoga Springs, and Isabelle Price, of Rochester, both sophomore Chemistry majors. They will be working on optimizing heterogeneous catalytic systems for carbon dioxide conversion to methanol. The amazing opportunity will allow Dr. Cardenas’ research group to gain access with cutting edge instruments in PNNL as well as collaborate with a scientist on top of the field of catalysis.

Jonas Simora of Ashville, will join Dr. Cardenas at PNNL through the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship Program, also under the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. Jonas, also a sophomore, will be learning high level computational chemistry and apply what he learned in Dr. Cardenas research.

The research experiences will last 10 weeks, from the end of May to early August. Students will receive a $650 a week stipend. A travel and housing allowance will also be provided to the participants.

Participants are also given the opportunity to visit government facilities and laboratories such as the Hanford Site, decommissioned nuclear reactor facility and Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO).