Magdalena Furczon has an additional feather in her cap thanks to her 2006 summer internship in Ames Laboratory’s Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship, or SULI, program. Furczon’s paper, “Kinetics of Dissociation of Molecular Oxygen from a Superoxorhodium Complex and Reactivity of a Macrocyclic Rhodium (II) Ion” will be published in a 2008 issue of Inorganic Chemistry.

Furczon was a student of Andreja Bakac, senior chemist in the Lab’s Chemical and Biological Sciences program, for 10 weeks in 2006. She shares authorship of the paper with Bakac and assistant scientist Oleg Pestovsky, who is in Bakac’s group. Bakac says Furczon was an excellent student to mentor.

“Magdalena took her internship very seriously and approached her work with great enthusiasm,” Bakac says. “Her contribution to this paper is something of which she can be very proud.”

Denae Clampitt works on her research project.

DeAnna Jones’ paper, “Cobalt Ferrite Nanocrystals: Out-Performing Magnetotactic Bacteria,” was also recently published in the October 2007 issue of ACSNano. Jones’ mentor was Surya Mallapragada, director of the Lab’s Materials Chemistry and Biomolecular Materials program and professor the ISU Chemical and Biological Engineering Department.

And Charles Pye’s paper titled, “Novel Coarsening of Pb Nanostructures on Si(111) 7X7,” was published in the 2007 issue of the Department of Energy’s Journal of Undergraduate Research. Pye was also invited by DOE’s Office of Science to present his research in the poster session at the American Association for the Advancement of Science convention in February 2007. Pye’s mentor was Michael Tringides, a physicist in Ames Lab’s Condensed Matter Physics program and an ISU professor in physics and astronomy. “

Charlie Pye checks experimental data on his computer.

Andreja Bakac (center) helps SULI student Magdalena Furczon make a point about her poster on display on the final day of the 2006 SULI program.

Furczon is the second SULI student Bakac has mentored, and is the second of her students to have a paper accepted by a journal. Bakac’s 2005 intern, Andrew Shuff, had his paper published in a 2006 issue of Organometallics.

Three other 2006 SULI students also saw their research recognized in 2007. Denae Clampitt’s paper, “Characterization of Multidrug Efflux Regulator AcrR from Eschericha coli,” was published in the July issue of Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. Clampitt’s mentor was Edward Yu, Ames Lab associate and assistant professor in the Iowa State University Physics and Astronomy Department.

Deanna Jones at work in the laboratory.

The commitment we receive from all our mentors is what really makes our program successful,” says Steve Karsjen, SULI coordinator. “And getting papers published in peer-reviewed and other journals is the icing on the cake, so to speak, when it comes to recognition of that effort. We congratulate all our SULI students and their mentors for their various accomplishments.”

Next year will mark Ames Lab’s fourth year of participation in the SULI program, which will kick off on May 27 and run through Aug. 1. Up to 15 new students are expected to participate in SULI in 2008.

According to Karsjen, the program’s goal is to bring undergraduates from colleges and universities nationwide that don’t have strong research missions to Ames Lab and ISU for real-world research experiences. Funding for SULI comes from the DOE Office of Science. Since inception in 2005, the SULI program has hosted 31 summer interns who have come from 26 colleges and universities nationwide.

~ Steve Karsjen