Faculty Expertise
Throughout your time at Washington College, you will work with faculty in classes, lab and field work, internships, and more. Faculty serve as teachers and mentors, and as advisors for your Senior Capstone Experience (SCE). Explore the research interests of our faculty below.
Chemistry Faculty
Leslie Sherman
Chair of Chemistry Department
W. Alton Jones Professor of Chemistry and Environmental Science
Leslie Sherman
Chair of Chemistry Department
W. Alton Jones Professor of Chemistry and Environmental Science
Areas of Expertise
Grassland restoration
Research
Both environmental science and chemistry students have been deeply involved in my research at the River and Field Campus and at Urieville Lake. I let them choose their research question and develop their own project. I currently have a student looking at trace metals in the grassland restoration soils. Last year I had a student investigating phosphorus cycling the lake.
Anne Marteel-Parrish
Professor of Chemistry
Inaugural Frank J. Creegan Chair in Green Chemistry
Associate Dean of Faculty
Anne Marteel-Parrish
Professor of Chemistry
Inaugural Frank J. Creegan Chair in Green Chemistry
Associate Dean of Faculty
Areas of Expertise
Green and sustainable chemistry and materials science
Research
My interests lie at the interface of greener and sustainable chemistry and materials science. I am driven by the application of greener chemistry in everything I do, which is about looking at ways to prevent pollution before it is formed. By doing so, we can become better informed citizens and move forward together towards a more sustainable world.
Jeremy Bard
Clarence C. White Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Jeremy Bard
Clarence C. White Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Areas of Expertise
Organic small molecules
Research
My lab focuses on the synthesis and characterization of a variety of novel organic small molecules. Through a combination of organic synthesis, analytical measurement, and physical organic concepts, we work to develop structure-property relationships for families of related molecules. Primarily, we are focusing on developing new and interesting types of Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) dyes that seek to achieve high separations between the colors of light emitted and the colors of light absorbed.
Daniel May
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Co-Director of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Major
Daniel May
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Co-Director of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Major
Areas of Expertise
Natural product chemistry
Research
I am a natural product chemist, which means I focus on discovering new drugs from natural sources. The compounds made by bacteria, fungi, and plants already provide us with many of our common medicines and there is still so much to be explored! I also study how these compounds are biosynthesized and the effects these potential drugs have on other organisms.
Quin Hu
Visiting Assistant Professor
Quin Hu
Visiting Assistant Professor
Areas of Expertise
Computational chemist
Research
I am a computational chemist specializing in computational modeling of chemical reactions and applying AI as a statistical tool in chemistry research. Students in my lab utilize a variety of theoretical tools such as quantum mechanics, Newtonian molecular dynamics, and machine learning to model chemical systems at atomic scales. This gives us an opportunity to understand the energetics and thermodynamic properties of chemical processes, and allows us to visualize chemical phenomenon including organic reactions and catalysis in biological enzymes.