In Their Own Words: Graduate Students | Department of Chemistry

Submitted by Diana Knight on August 19, 2021 - 3:39 pm

Graduate students in the Department of Chemistry reflect on teaching, learning, researching, and living amid a pandemic and beyond.

Rachel Huchmala, graduate student
Riley Rogan, MS in Applied Chemical Science and Technology 2021
Lizzy Canarie, graduate student

Rachel Huchmala, graduate student
Finding your place and fitting in can be challenging in any new community, and I think for students this is even more so—we talk about dealing with Imposter Syndrome, but we don’t really talk about how it all starts. For me, questions like: do you fit in at the university? Are you going to be able to make friends and form study groups? Can you change enough to seem like everyone else? And most importantly, do you have to?

I knew when I moved to a new city, “across” the country southwest to northwest, and started here at UW, I was going to have to find a place for me, and probably pretty quickly. We like to say our department is “interdisciplinary” and “highly collaborative,” but these buzzwords don’t always translate well. During my first faculty meeting at my visit weekend, I explained in less than 10 words what I wanted to study to Dr. Sarah Keller, and her immediate response was “Make sure you meet with Dr. Anne McCoy.” This experience encompasses how I think about the department and how I explain it to others. Yes, it is big, yes there are a lot of graduate students, but we all just want to see each other succeed. Because if the student before me could do it, then I can too. Here at UW, I quickly found my place as a scientist, but discovering how I fit in as me was a bit more challenging.

I was lucky enough to have about a year and a half of finding where I fit literally inside of Bagley Hall, but of course all of this changed with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a theorist, my lab came home with me and research during lockdown meant buying a desk, upgrading my WiFi, and getting comfortable with my office, gym, living room, and bedroom all existing in the same 600 sq. ft. And just like that I was faced with finding where I fit. Not only did I have to isolate myself from my peers for public health and safety, [but also] my ability to work in an almost full capacity at home further isolated me from my friends who were locked out of their labs, one constant I got to hold on to while the world we knew crumbled around us. As we have all adapted to living in COVID times, I remain extremely grateful that I was still able to advance to PhD candidacy before my 25th birthday, and that I have found ways to connect with friends virtually as the president of the UW Chemistry Graduate Student Club. All in all, I owe a lot to this club and I feel extremely fortunate to be a part of a department that knows the importance of the graduate students coming together to form a community.

What I am most looking forward to post-pandemic is my group member's 3:15 pm alarm that goes off in the office when it’s time for coffee and cookies in Rab’s Room. Out of all the things the department does, this is my favorite because not only do I love cookies, but I love watching people shed their lab coats and goggles, poke their heads out from their offices, put the problem sets away and for just a couple minutes be themselves. My goal in becoming involved in the UW Chemistry Graduate Student Club was to create more opportunities like this for myself and my peers to get to know each other, or more eloquently, to foster our “interdisciplinary” community from a social aspect. And while this has been challenging this year, I hope the events and websites and Slack workspaces I have been a part of creating helped at least one person find a place where they fit. Furthermore, I hope these resources continue to be maintained as we transition to life post-pandemic. I don’t think I can express just how grateful I am that finding my fit in grad school was supported by a department funded club, but I know I can express how grateful I am to have met everyone I have through this experience and so to anyone just starting out, first I congratulate you, I know I couldn’t have done it, and second I hope we get a chance to meet and maybe even chat over cookies in Rab’s Room sometime soon. And to everyone else that has supported me these past few years, thanks and sorry I can’t stop sticking my nose into things.

Abridged from Rachel’s remarks at the May 26, 2001 Awards Recognition Event on Zoom.

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Riley Rogan, MS in Applied Chemical Science and Technology 2021
I am happy to report that I have officially accepted my offer as a Clinical Technologist I in the Pharmacokinetics Lab at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance! The PK Lab is a specialized clinical lab that services clients from cancer hospitals all over the US and Canada. I will be using their GC-MS and triple quadrupole LC-MS instruments to quantify chemotherapy drugs in patient blood samples. The information learned from the therapeutic drug monitoring procedures will be used to recommend personalized quantities of the drugs for subsequent doses.

While interviewing, the lab manager and director both told me that my pursuit of a master's degree in Applied Chemical Science and Technology and my GC research as a member of Rob Synovec’s lab helped to set me apart from other candidates. I also answered many of their questions with my experiences I had in the MSACST coursework, especially Dr. Bush's Bimolecular Analysis lab, Dr. Zhang's Instrumental Analysis lab, and Dr. Synovec’s Chemical Separation Techniques class due to how relevant the material was for this position. They were impressed with the depth of instrumental experience the program provided and how well the coursework prepared students for the lab industry. I can honestly say that without the MSACST coursework and research experience, I would not have been qualified for the job or received an offer, so thank you to Prof. Rob Synovec for supervising my research as a member of your group and for all your mentorship along the way!

I have started working two days a week during spring quarter and will transition to full time upon graduation in June. It’s been great working for SCCA so far and they've been taking really great care of me too. I'm very happy I've been able to find a job that is the perfect intersection of my analytical skills and helping others.

Adapted from email correspondence between Riley and the Department of Chemistry in spring 2020.