Laine Radell: Connoisseur of Chemistry

>> Announcer This is a production of Temple University.
>>Laine I didn't do well in Physics in high school so science was really scary to me coming
into college. It changed with Chemistry of Wine.
[glasses clink and wine pours] >> The class I took. I think the name is a
little misleading. It's not about the types of wines; it's just about the chemistry behind
it. Red wine is red as opposed to white wine or why wine is bitter as opposed to sweet.
And after seeing the real world in a tangible application that chemistry had, it really
sold me and that's what I wanted to study. This is the electrospray that captures your
gaseous particles. I wanted to learn it hands on so I walked into Dr. Robert Levis and I
said I'm interested in doing undergraduate research. What opportunities do you have for
me? And he's like, okay, here you go, have fun and he threw me in the lab and it was
really a sink or swim thing, I think. Here we're at the Center for Advanced Photonics
Research. Our laser beam comes through all along this table. Here I was doing electrospray
mass spectrometry so it combines an intense, ultra-fast laser beam with an electrospray
source so it has the capability of vaporizing almost any sample. Kind of vaporizing anything
you have in the refrigerator so eggs, strawberries, I think we did a worm, at one point, leaves.
I don't think it would be as easy for students to go and do research at other universities
because here I just walked in and I was excited and they threw me in the lab. It was an experience
that I think you can't get anywhere else. This summer, where my first journal article,
I will be an author on a paper, that will be published hopefully and it's, it's the
feeling that you're contributing to human knowledge and the greater, greater good and
I think that's a really cool that you can't get anywhere else.