Collaborations by Dr. Robyn Goacher Highlighted at Chemistry Education Conference
Dr. Robyn E. Goacher, associate professor chemistry at Niagara University, co-presented a talk titled “Making gold nanoparticles green: a POGIL physical chemistry experiment” at the 25th Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (BCCE), which was held at the University of Notre Dame on July 29th-August 2nd, 2018.
Dr. Goacher collaborated on this project with Dr. Maria Pacheco, associate professor at Buffalo State College. Together, they created a new inquiry-based experiment where students compared traditional and “green” chemistry methods to prepare gold nanoparticles. The work included sharing instrumentation across the two universities.
Additionally, Niagara University was recognized during a conference plenary session by Notre Dame professor Marya Lieberman as one of five universities collaborating on the Distributed Pharmaceutical Analysis Lab (DPAL). Dr. Goacher and her students joined this project two years ago, and since then have been analyzing metformin pills from Africa for purity and potency.