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Westminster students, faculty present research at Pittcon

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Posted on Thursday, April 20, 2023

Westminster College STEM students and faculty recently participated in the annual Pittcon national conference held on March 19-22, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center located in Philadelphia. 

Pittcon, celebrating its 75th year, is a dynamic, transitional conference and exposition on laboratory science that presents the latest advances in analytical research, doubling as a platform for continuing education and science opportunities. It features more than 1,000 technical sessions, 500 exhibitors and thousands of attendees.

Four Westminster College students presented their senior capstone research projects at the conference:

Harris Kohl, a senior chemistry major from York, Pa., presented “Using Orsob as the Extracting Media in Lithium-Ion Extraction from Aqueous Solution,” co-authored with Dr. Peter Smith, professor of chemistry. 

Kate Sharp, a senior biochemistry major from Chalk Hill, Pa., presented “Monitoring and Understanding Early Stage Bone Mineralization,” co-authored with Dr. Erin Wilson, associate professor of chemistry. 

Morgan Straw, a senior environmental science major from Indiana, Pa., presented “Soil Quality Analysis Before and After a Prescribed Burn,” co-authored with Dr. Patrick Krantz, associate professor of environmental science, and Dr. Helen Boylan, professor of chemistry and director of Westminster’s Center for the Environment.

Jacob Trzcinski, senior engineering physics major from Beaver Falls, Pa., presented “Generating Novel Chiplet Designs Utilizing the Wave-Function Collapse Algorithm in Python,” co-authored with Dr. Matto Luisi, assistant professor of physics. 

Dr. Jessica Sarver, associate professor of chemistry and chair of the department of biochemistry and chemistry, and Boylan attended the conference as part of the Pittcon organizing committee. Sarver served as the networking chair-elect and Boylan served as the program chair-elect. 

Students and faculty at the conference had the opportunity to network with Westminster alumni, including Jennifer Armen Luke ’17, Ian “Mitch” Taylor ’08 and Justin Shearer ’02

To learn more about the various STEM programs at Westminster, click here.