A New Direction

SURE program set Carthage alumna
Erin Zimmerman on path to research

August 23, 2011

Three years ago, Erin Zimmerman, '11, was dead-set against going to graduate school, and she had not even considered a career in research.

Then she spent a summer in a Carthage chemistry lab studying enantiomers of beta blockers. Enantiomers are molecules that are mirror images of each other; they look identical but, in pharmaceuticals, can have very different and sometimes dangerous effects. For 12 weeks, Erin used nuclear magnetic resonance techniques to study how enantiomers bind to other molecules. The ultimate goal of the project: To gather binding strength data that could improve techniques used to separate enantiomers and make medications safer.

The summer's result? A brand new direction for Erin.

That summer "made me realize that I actually liked doing research," said Erin, who graduated in May with majors in chemistry and theatre and a minor in biology. Now she is headed for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she will pursue a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry.

"The SURE program was my first research experience," she said, referring to her summer participating in Carthage's Summer Undergraduate Research Experience. "It helped me land other research internships the next two summers, and ultimately helped me get accepted into graduate school. ... I would not have even considered research as a career path had I not participated in the SURE program."

Erin spent the summer of 2011 interning with Abbott Laboratories, where she worked on developing more efficient methods of high performance liquid chromatography. It was her second internship with Abbott; she also worked for the company during the summer of 2010.

These undergraduate research experiences not only opened her eyes to new career options, but gave her confidence in the lab, she said. "You learn how to problem solve, and you learn much better technique because you are usually performing an experiment more than once."

Just months after her graduation, Erin said she already misses Carthage. Highlights of her time here included traveling to the national American Chemical Society convention in San Francisco with Profs. Kevin Morris and C.J. Stephenson and other SURE participants; performing in theatre productions; and traveling to Costa Rica and Nicaragua for J-Term.

"I miss the community between the students and the professors," she said. "I am hoping that there will be a good chemistry community in grad school, but I doubt it could compare to that at Carthage."

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A New Direction
SURE research set Carthage alumna Erin Zimmerman on a new career path.

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