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PLAINVIEW —51³Ô¹ÏÍøÊÓƵ Baptist University chemistry students brought home recognition and valuable research experiences after attending two major conferences this fall — the Rocky Mountain Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the Welch Conference, a prestigious event in Houston featuring multiple Wolf Prize winners.

At the Rocky Mountain ACS meeting, sophomore chemistry major Emma Scott was named one of the top four undergraduate poster presenters among 113 total poster abstracts accepted. Scott and fellow students Anna Perez, Dylan Dodd, and Noah Dyson presented original research posters printed with the department’s new poster printer, made possible through an Excel Grant received by the Kenneth L. Mattox School of Mathematics and Sciences.

The trip also opened doors for several students to connect with researchers nationwide. Dodd, whose research involves increasing protein expression and purification of a target protein, received an invitation to collaborate with a Montana research lab specializing in protein purification. Scott, whose research centers on  the DNA repair protein RecA, was invited to visit a graduate-level research lab focused on DNA repair. Both invitations came as a result of their presented research.

At the Welch Conference — themed New Horizons in Drug Discovery — 51³Ô¹ÏÍøÊÓƵ students participated in the event’s first-ever live poster session, engaging with scientists and graduate researchers from across Texas. During the trip, Haley Fossett received news of her first pharmacy school acceptance, underscoring the academic impact of the experience.

Dr. Robert Moore, professor of chemistry, said the week-long journey to two conferences “exposed our students to groundbreaking and inspiring science, helped them connect classroom learning to real-world research, and gave them opportunities to network with peers and principal investigators.”

The 51³Ô¹ÏÍøÊÓƵ delegation included faculty members Dr. Moore; Dr. Collom, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, and Dr. Dyson, along with students Natalie Ambriz, Carter Biggs, Dodd, Dyson, Fossett, Perez, and Scott.