Clarkson University undergraduate student Ana Witkowski ’19, a Biomolecular Science major, and member of the honors program, was awarded a $500 American Chemical Society (ACS) Polymer Division Travel Award that helped her attend the ACS National Meeting in March 2018, held in New Orleans. She presented a paper titled “Shape Memory and Self-Healing Polyanhydrides” as part of the Undergraduate Research in Polymer Science Symposium. The paper is co-authored by her advisor, Professor Devon A. Shipp, and fellow students Kelly Tillman and Rebecca Meacham ‘21.
Witkowski’s research has focused on a novel degradable plastic material called polyanhydrides. She is examining ways that these plastics are able to ‘remember’ their original shape after they have been distorted at an elevated temperature. This phenomenon is something like reversible origami for plastics. She is also studying the chemistry behind their ability to undergo self-healing. These materials have potential use as drug delivery vehicles and degradable bioadhesives. Witkowski performed much of the work during the summer of 2017 when she was the David A. Walsh Summer Research Fellowship recipient.
Clarkson University educates the leaders of the global economy. One in five alumni already leads as an owner, CEO, VP or equivalent senior executive of a company. With its main campus located in Potsdam, New York, and additional graduate program and research facilities in the Capital Region and Beacon, N.Y., Clarkson is a nationally recognized research university with signature areas of academic excellence and research directed toward the world’s pressing issues. Through more than 50 rigorous programs of study in engineering, business, arts, education, sciences and the health professions, the entire learning-living community spans boundaries across disciplines, nations, and cultures to build powers of observation, challenge the status quo and connect discovery and innovation with enterprise.
For more information, contact:
Melissa Lindell,
Director of Media Relations
315-268-6716
mlindell@clarkson.edu.
Original PR can be found here: Clarkson University Student Awarded an American Chemical Society Polymer Division Travel Grant
thumbnail courtesy of clarkson.edu
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