Natalie Adriano has been involved with research since her first year at Northern Kentucky University.
The chemistry major cites her experience presenting her first research poster for the Kentucky Academy of Science as one of her favorite memories in her time here. She was able to spend time with her friends and professors, and even ended up winning third place for physical and analytical chemistry.
“With Dr. [Patrick] Hare as my mentor, I have been researching the synthesis and photolysis of lumiestrone, the photolysis product of estrone. The work I have done on this project includes the synthesis, spectroscopic analysis and computational analysis of lumiestrone. This project has been going for three years,” she says. “[Dr. Hare] has been an excellent mentor all four years I spent here. With his guidance, I have grown a lot as a scientist.”
"[Dr. Hare] has been an excellent mentor all four years I spent here. With his guidance, I have grown a lot as a scientist."
Natalie's research has led to five poster presentations with a third place win at the 2019 Kentucky Academy of Sciences meeting and a first place win at the 2020 KAS meeting.
According to her nominator, her “synthesis and computational work will serve as the nuclei of two articles on which she will be a co-author.”
Natalie has spent a considerable amount of time in the lab, but she was also heavily involved in several organizations on campus. She has been a member and executive board member of NKU’s chapter of the Student Affiliates of the American Chemical Society (SAACS), in which she put together and marketed events and did chemistry demonstrations. She has also been a teaching assistant (TA) for nursing chemistry labs, general chemistry labs, and general chemistry lectures. Natalie said that she mostly enjoyed being a TA because she loves “introducing people to new and cool topics and showing them how cool the sciences can be”. She has also volunteered, before the pandemic, at local hospitals and the Ohio Justice and Policy Center.
Natalie looks forward to continuing her education in medical school, as she aims to continue helping even more people throughout her life, both in increasing STEM education and through her research.
