PNC Tri Beta Members Presented at Research Conference

Tri-Beta-Members-Research-Conference-2015Purdue University North Central students who are members of the Tri Beta Biology honor society recently presented their research at the 2015 Butler Undergraduate Research Conference, at Butler University in Indianapolis.

Club members attending were Stefanie Rigg, of Valparaiso, president; Nate Kennedy, of LaPorte, vice president and member Jasmine Moore, of Knox and associate member Melanie Shebel, of New Buffalo, Mich. The PNC students were among the 586 who presented projects and 954 attendees.

Rigg and Kennedy presented the poster, "Methods in Extracting DNA: Using Phenol-Chloroform on Formalin Fixed Human Brain Tissue." Their poster had also been presented at the National Tri Beta Conference held at Thomas More College in Crestview Hills, Kentucky in March.

Moore and Shebel both worked under the direction of Dr. Jessica Thomas, PNC assistant professor of Chemistry, with separate projects. Moore had the poster, "The Effect of the Order of Amino Acids in a Small Peptide," and Shebel gave a presentation on her research called "Application of the B3LYP-DCP Method to Peptides."

Rigg earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biology in May and will pursue her Master’s degree in Biology at Purdue University Calumet.

Kennedy and Moore, both Biology majors, will both be PNC seniors in the fall. Kennedy has been elected he president of Tri Beta and Moore, vice president. Shebel will continue her studies as a Chemistry major and will conduct more research with Thomas.