Sonic participated in an outreach project with other PSU students in which they created videos of themselves sharing a talent or greeting and produced it into a video collage for residents at nursing homes. Their efforts were highlighted in this story. 

Ashley was honored with the Peter Craig Breen Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Chemistry Research

Lauren was selected for a Sloan Research Fellowship

Lauren was awarded a Rustum and Della Roy Innovation in Materials Research award at Materials Day 2019

Our color-shifting technology won the People's Choice award at the Invent Penn State Tech Tournament

Congrats to Wilanyi for a great REU poster presentation

We ran a session in the 2019 Make it Matter summer camp and taught students about surfactants and emulsions

Caleb wins 2nd place in the Materials Visualization Competition and 3rd in the MatSE poster competition

Yoshi was awarded the George W. Brindley Award in Nonmetallic Crystal Chemistry from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Our group's paper is published in Nature and featured on the cover. See the PSU News article and C&EN video

Lauren was selected for an ACS Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator grant

The Zarzar group designed and led activities at the Make It Matter summer camp at Penn State. The activies taught high school students about surface tension, surfactants, and emulsions, and how that fundamental science relates to the current research on responsive fluids in the lab.

Lauren, who is one of the directors of WISDOM, took part in a local outreach event to discuss women's participation in STEM

Caleb was awarded a fellowship from the NASA Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium

Nabila won second place at the PPG Elevator Pitch Competition for a pitch on her research related to laser direct writing

Amy has been selected for a Benkovic Summer Undergraduate Research Award

Shannon McGee was awarded the $4K Continuing Graduate Student TA Award in Spring 2020 to continue her proposed project from Fall ‘19 of creating safety and technique videos for organic lab courses CHEM 213W and 203 with a heavy focus on instrumentation, sample preparation, and spectral analysis.

Ashley and Sonic showcased their work on iridescent structural color at the Science Writers conference.

Our group's research is featured in WIRED

Shannon McGee was awarded a fall 2019 $4k Continuing Graduate TA award for her proposal to create lab technique and safety videos that would be uploaded on Canvas prior to the lab period for organic 203 and 213W lab courses. These videos would demonstrate relevant safety practices and techniques to the students for the upcoming lab period before they arrive so they can be more prepared and see how a more experienced TA approaches the experiment.  

Congrats to Ashley on her McNair Scholars research presentation

Amy wins 1st place in the Materials Visualization Competition and the Robert E. Newnham Award for Research Excellence

Alex was selected for the Harold F. Martin Graduate Assistant Outstanding Teaching Award from the Graduate School

Lauren was selected for an Army-ECASE (Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers). Penn State News story

Lauren was selected for the ARO Young Investigator award.

Sonic volunteered as a science mentor for BBVS (Bureau of Blindness and Visual Services) Summer Academy at Penn State. Here, he is mentoring students in a forensic science activity to analyze evidence gathered at a mock crime scene. He also won an award for this involvement as a science mentor.

Lauren was selected for a 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award

Rebecca was awarded a NASA Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium (PSGC) Graduate Fellowship

Leo was selected for an Erickson Discovery Grant

Congrats to Ciera who received a 2018-2019 Chemistry Graduate Student Teaching Award

Lauren was selected as one of the 2019 Packard Fellows

Lauren was selected as one of C&EN's "Talented 12". Link to article

We shared "Structural Colors of Everyday Materials" with visitors to the PA Arts Fest at the Art of Discovery Booth

Putting on 'Sweet Science' themed demos for participants at the 50th annual PA Special Olympics. Many students from our group signed up to volunteer at different times throughout the day.

Lauren was selected for the Unilever Award from the ACS Colloid and Surface Chemistry Division.

Yoshi was awarded an Erickson Discovery Grant

At Exploration-U in Bellfonte, we showcased the properties of interfacial tension of liquids using detergents and emulsions and conducted boat races powered by spreading soap films. The event was attended by several hundred elementary-aged students and parents from the area along with other demonstrators from across STEM departments at PSU.

Caleb volunteered at the Central PA Arts fest running a booth making Oobleck (mix of cornstarch and water) demonstrating how certain fluids can have non-Newtonian viscosities. There were over 1000 kids in attendance that day.

Ashley was selected for the ACS Scholars Program

Sonic volunteered with the MRSEC at the USA Science and Engineering Festival in DC. He demonstrated light lithography using acrylic stencils made using a laser cutter and solar paper