A group of StFX chemistry students had a very successful time in attending the 43rd annual ChemCon Conference at Saint Mary’s University from June 8-10, 2018. This Atlantic Canada regional conference is the annual local meeting of the Chemical Institute of Canada.
StFX had five students attend, Katie Doran, Andrew Duffy and Bry Crabbe from the Hallett-Tapley Group, Pablo Scrosati from the Razul Group, and Shannon MacLennan from the Maragoni Group, as well as two faculty members, Dr. Geniece Tapley and Dr. Gerry Marangoni.
Mr. Duffy and Mr. Crabbe presented award-winning oral presentations. Mr. Duffy received first place in the ‘Organic best oral presentation division’ in the Undergraduate Organic Division for his talk entitled “Palladium Nanoparticles Supported on Niobium Oxide Perovskites as Heterogeneous Photocatalysts in the Heck Reaction,” and Mr. Crabbe received best oral presentation in the Graduate Materials Division for his talk entitled, “Photocatalytic C-C Coupling Reactions using AuNP Functionalized Potassium Niobium Oxide Perovskites.”
As well, Ms. Doran and Mr. Scrosati presented extremely well received poster presentations.
“The students gained valuable experience explaining their research at the conference to people from several disciplines of chemistry and discussing their research to other members of the regional chemistry community,” says Dr. Tapley.
“Both the oral and poster presentations were well received and myself and Dr. Marangoni received several compliments on the work presented by the X students. We are pretty proud of them here in the Chemistry Department.”