From Water to Human Dynamics: Taking a Non-traditional path to make chemistry more inclusive

About the speaker

Dr. Chrissy Stachl (she/ella) graduated from the University of Washington in 2014 with dual B.S. degrees in Chemistry and Neuroscience. Prior to starting her Ph.D., she spent a post-baccalaureate research year at the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin, where she was funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to study the structure of sugar polymers at ultracold temperatures. She began her graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 2015 as a National Science Foundation and Ford Foundation Fellow, where she began using infrared photodissociation spectroscopy to probe the structure and energetics of hydrated ion clusters in the gas phase. Her desire to improve the quality of mentoring interactions that are so critical to graduate student success led her launch a longitudinal study of the Berkeley Chemistry academic climate. Shortly after, she switched the focus of her research to chemistry education and spent the rest of her Ph.D. working to understand the issues that negatively affect diversity, inclusion, and belonging within graduate communities, and designing interventions to directly combat these disparities. Chrissy earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry in 2020 from UC Berkeley and is now the Director of Education, Outreach, and Diversity at the National Science Foundation Center for Genetically Encoded Materials (C-GEM). Outside of work, Chrissy loves spending time with her dog Rosie, indulging in photography, hiking, and camping. She recently also contributed to a Women in STEM all-ages coloring book, created by ColorMePhD (download it here: http://bit.ly/colormephdvol2 for free!)

Abstract

Dr. Stachl’s journey to, and through, the University of California, Berkeley, Department of Chemistry contained many unexpected twists and turns. A trained chemist, she started out working in a physical chemistry lab, doing gas-phase research to understand how water molecules interact with each other and the ions they solvate. As one of only a few Latin women in her department of >400 graduate students, she quickly began to feel isolated and had trouble finding individuals that she could relate with. This motivated her to find ways to diversify her department and dedicate time outside of research to start a DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiative within Berkeley Chemistry. She eventually fell in love with the work she was doing to help ensure that younger generations of chemistry graduate students would not face the same hardships she had overcome, and switched fields to gain a more rigorous understanding of the issues responsible for the diminishing representation of marginalized individuals at the highest levels of academia. In this presentation, Dr. Stachl will talk about the experiences that ultimately motivated her doctoral research in both physical chemistry and chemistry education, as well as the unique path she paved to pursue a career as both a chemist and an educator.

Time

10:30 – 11:00 a.m. Chatting
11:00 a.m. Talk and Discussion

Reservation

Please register for this Zoom talk by email to office@calacs.org. We need your email address to send the meeting details no later than May 8, 2021 or RSVP.

Use the link for reservation and meeting place:
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/5089184