My name is Lynn Diener and I work on the new Chemistry Education pathway. The Chemistry Education Digital Library (ChemEd DL) brings together a variety of innovative electronic resources for teaching Chemistry. We will highlight a number of these resources in our upcoming seminar, Chemistry Comes Alive II: Sticky Molecules and Folding Proteins.

I knew from the time I was very young that Science was the field for me. I grew up in Eastern Washington. As most children do, I loved to dig and play in the dirt. My best friend and I decided it would be fun to dig a hole in her lawn next to her house one day, to see what was there, we were hoping to find some worms for fishing. We dug for a few inches and came across something extraordinary, a layer of gray powdery dirt. It was so different from the dark brown dirt around it that we were instantly hooked on solving the mystery of the gray dirt. We mucked around with the gray dirt and found it to be quite distinct from the rest of the dirt, it was more powdery and less like clay. We decided to ask some experts (her parents) what this magical stuff was. That’s when we discovered that what we found was ash from the last explosion of Mount Saint Helen’s. The ash had traveled all the way from the coast to Eastern Washington. It had been so thick after the eruption that cars on the street couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of them, relying on the lights from the car in front of them to keep them on the road and out of the ditch. I think that was the start of my love for science and scientific inquiry.

I got my B.A. in Environmental Science from Bard College. I took a heavy course load in both biology and chemistry and found an abiding love of both sciences at that time. At the University of Wisconsin, Madison I got my PhD in Molecular and Environmental Toxicology. I wanted to work in a field that combined the study of biology and chemistry, because I found so much joy in both fields. The majority of my research focused on mercury, one of the most toxic metals known to man. I looked at the interactions of mercury with soil organic matter and soil microorganisms. Our focus was to better understand the chemistry of mercury in the environment. Ultimately though the better you understand the fate and transport of mercury in the environment the easier it is to avoid environmental exposure to mercury.

We hope to see you all at the Mole Day web-seminar. Happy Mole Day!