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Three of our Spring 2025 graduates are starting their Chemistry PhD studies this fall.

Josh Balbach (left) will start at UC Berkeley, Isabella Escutia (middle) at the University of Southern California, and Amanda Nilsen (right) at the University of Washington.

Best of luck to Josh, Isabella, and Amanda!

Congrats to all of our undergraduates who participated in commencement festivities on May 16, 2025. Please keep in touch!

15 undergraduate chemistry students presented their research projects at the annual Northern California Undergraduate Research Symposium on May 3, 2025 at San Jose State University.  We are really proud of their excellent work!

Dr. Janet Yang’s group had their article accepted in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. The article, entitled “Two stages of substrate discrimination dictate selectivity in the Escherichia coli MetNI-Q ABC transporter system” features research conducted by Dr. Yang, Hulda Chen (MS’22), John Guardado (BS’23), Maile Gardner (MS’27) and Matthew Foronda (MS’20). Congrats everyone on publishing this exciting new work.

Lead PI Professor Michael Stevenson and Co-PI Professor Kai Burrus at San Francisco State University received a collaborative grant of $379,057 from the National Science Foundation for their project entitled “Assessing the Impact of Engaging Students as Active Change Agents in Chemistry Curriculum Reform Using Scientist Spotlights.” This project will adapt and implement the Scientist Spotlights intervention to engage students in authoring and experiencing culturally responsive curricula in chemistry courses and assess the impact of the Scientist Spotlights interventions on student affective and academic outcomes in chemistry courses.

Congrats, Dr. Stevenson!

This summer the Karney Research Group hosted several groups of local high school students participating in USF’s College Access Program (CAP). USF students Amanda Nilsen and Ben Quinn, and recent graduate Ishika Jain led the CAP students through computer molecular modeling activities and answered questions about the college experience and application process.

Two of our recent chemistry graduates are starting their PhD studies this fall.

John Guardado (’23, left) will join the Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics PhD program at Caltech.

Justin Samford (’24, right) will start in the Chemistry PhD program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Best of luck to John and Justin!

In August 2023, student researchers in the Chemistry Department attended the American Chemical Society National Meeting. Six USF undergraduate students presented posters of their research. Check out the Research page for more details.

Isabella Escutia (’25) is a recipient of the Clare Boothe Luce Undergraduate Scholarship. This two-year scholarship supports undergraduate female students in STEM. Izzy is currently conducting research in Professor Herman Nikolayevskiy’s lab. Bravo, Izzy!

Njeri Forester (‘26) and John Guardado (’23) have been recognized as American Chemical Society Scholars. This distinction comes with a $5,000 scholarship in support of tuition and fees. Congratulations to Njeri and John!