Helen Boylan Funari

I have been at Westminster College since 2001 and currently serve as Director of the Center for the Environment where I coordinate the Environmental Science and Environmental Studies programs.  I am honored to be Westminster's Gibson-Drinko Distinguished Faculty Member.

I regularly teach environmental science and chemistry courses, including:

• ES/CHE 231 Environmental Analysis
• ES 601 Environmental Science Capstone
• CHE 451 Advanced Laboratory
• CHE 601 Chemistry Capstone I

My students and I are heavily involved in service learning and experiential learning.  We collaborate on an annual basis with the Slippery Rock Watershed Coalition on water quality testing of passive treatment sites for abandoned mine drainage.  We are currently collaborating with the Lawrence County Conservation District through the Lawrence and Mercer ALLARM program (www.lawmerallarm.org) on local stream water quality.  Additionally, the Tiny House Project Team worked with the New Castle School of Trades on the building of Westminster's first tiny house.

My research interests include environmental and forensic science applications of analytical chemistry and chemometrics.  I am an organizing committee member of the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy (Pittcon).

I was recently awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant with Brian Petrus (School of Business) and Alison DuBois (School of Edcuation) to develop an interdisciplinary service learning cluster program involving an environmental science course and a project management course.