Our senior lab, which has been a capstone experience for decades, received a comprehensive makeover this summer.
With WSE funding, we remediated the asbestos and replaced it with a brand-new floor, painted the walls, and replaced all the missing lighting. This renovation meant that every piece of equipment had to be disassembled, packed into cartons and moved to a safe place for the duration.
But the biggest improvement in the senior lab experience came in August when Dr. Carmen Cartisano, joined the department as our very first lab manager. Dr. Cartisano is a recent Ph.D. recipient in analytical chemistry from the University of Maryland, College Park. So her background was perfect to allow her to assist Dr. Lise Dahuron to move all the equipment back into the lab and make sure that everything still worked. We have invested in the equipment for a lot of new experiments; hence, the reconstruction process was a big undertaking. Carmen is proving to be invaluable in working closely with students to guide them in the lab, and to ensure that all the experiments are working well. She is a stickler for maintaining adherence to safety in the teaching lab, helping us to put safety first in Maryland Hall. We are excited to have Carmen bringing such organization, efficiency and good safe practices to our labs.