Achievement

Sarah Runge describes a transformational educational experience that she had through the IGERT: "One remarkable experience for me was a breakfast meeting with Dr. Russ Chianelli, which was arranged by IGERT faculty. Dr. Chianelli and other chemists took a trip to Mayan ruins and realized the pigments that were used thousands of years ago were still vivid today. That got Chianelli's team excited about understanding what was different about the Mayan's paints for commercialization purposes. Chianelli and his team went on to successfully commercialize a line of paints derived from Mayan pigments. Speaking with Chianelli about how he made these types of connections allowed me to realize discoveries related to the scientific field can have applications outside of FDA approval. For me, this outcome from the IGERT program has me thinking about my research in a totally separate way."