This post was updated January 16, 2017.
Since graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill with my PhD in Chemistry, I moved up north to Worcester, MA. As a Visiting Assistant Professor at College of the Holy Cross, I teach General Chemistry lecture and lab to chemistry major and non-major students. In addition to the teaching experiences I gained at Muskingum and UNC, the Visiting Assistant Professor position at Holy Cross allows me to further develop my teaching skills. Much like Muskingum, Holy Cross is a small liberal arts college where professors are actively engaged in teaching, research, and advising students. For many years, it has been my ultimate career goal to be a tenure-track professor at a small liberal arts college, teaching general chemistry, physical chemistry, and inorganic chemistry classes, working with students in the research lab, and advising students. I am excited to announce that, starting next fall, I will be joining the faculty at Muskingum University. I look forward to being back on campus and sharing my appreciation and enthusiasm for chemistry.
This post was originally published October 28, 2013.
Seth Barrett, ’11, came to Muskingum because “all students, staff, and professors I met during visitation days were extremely friendly and helpful. Professors were actively engaged in teaching and advising their students, as they discussed past graduates in the program and the many extracurricular and leadership opportunities available to the students.”
Barrett, a chemistry and art major, is now enrolled in the Chemistry Ph.D. program at the University of North Carolina, studying inorganic chemistry. “Specifically, I design, synthesize, and characterize materials for alternative energy applications (ex. harvesting and utilizing solar energy).” Barrett chose to further his education after discovering – “through tutoring, teaching, and committee work at Muskingum” – that he wanted to be a college professor.
Barrett is already making a name for himself in the world of chemistry, taking advantage of many research opportunities available to him. “I was able to start researching in the UNC chemistry labs the summer before my first year of graduate school and was fortunate enough to complete a research project that was published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry last year. In this paper, I developed oxygen-sensing inorganic materials using metal-organic frameworks (MOFs).”
“Muskingum helped prepare me for graduate school,” Barrett explains, “by giving me the tools needed to perform research at the graduate level. I gained theoretical understanding of chemistry from class, and laboratory techniques from lab courses at Muskingum. Graduate school is most certainly different from undergraduate life, but Muskingum helped prepare me … by giving me the chemical knowledge and people skills necessary for success.”