stephen springer

My duties included supervising introductory and upper-division chemistry laboratories. I was responsible for ensuring student safety, providing technical expertise, and grading student work. Being able to convey complicated technical information to non-experts was essential to successfully executing my duties.

My dissertation research was done under the direction of Alison Butler. The work focused on bio-mass conversion for the purpose of developing a renewable chemical feedstock. Specifically, the efforts focused on the de-polymerization of the bio-polymer known as lignin into small molecule aromatic sub-units. Research into lignin de-polymerization was approached in two ways. First, direct catalytic oxidation of bulk lignin and lignin model compounds was performed. Second, natural lignin degradation by white fungi was studied using transcriptomics through next generation sequencing technology on an Illumina platform.