糖心Vlog传媒

National Science Foundation fellow chooses 糖心Vlog传媒LR

Staying near Little Rock to earn a doctorate is important to Hunter Wayland. With her mother battling breast cancer and multiple sclerosis, Wayland chose the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where she鈥檚 pursuing her degree. 鈥溙切腣log传媒LR is a good school,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey have a good chemistry program, and it鈥檚 close to home.鈥� Wayland, from Arkadelphia, was selected as a fellow in the highly competitive and prestigious . The program has funded close to 50,000 graduate research fellowships out of more than 500,000 applicants since 1952. NSF pays for Wayland鈥檚 tuition and fees and provides a stipend. Students can apply as undergraduates or as first- or second-year graduate students. Wayland鈥檚 focus is on environmental chemical systems. She was inspired to pursue science because of her father. 鈥淗e encouraged me to be inquisitive and ask questions,鈥� she said. Wayland attended Henderson State University for her bachelor鈥檚 degree, where she majored in chemistry and minored in physics. She presented her undergraduate research at local, state, and national conferences, including the American Chemical Society Conferences. While at 糖心Vlog传媒LR, she has been working with her mentor, Dr. Anindya Ghosh, an associate professor in applied science and chemistry, since October. 鈥淚 really like the lab and working for Dr. Ghosh,鈥� said Wayland. 鈥淗e is very flexible with me, and he understands the situation that I鈥檓 going through with my family, as well as what my goals are as a scientist in general, and he鈥檚 worked really hard to incorporate me into the lab.鈥� 鈥淥ur lab feels a lot like a family. We look out for each other and everybody鈥檚 very understanding,鈥� she said. Under Ghosh, she鈥檚 working on creating catalysts to remove pollutants from wastewater before the water is used for other things, like agriculture. 鈥淚t鈥檚 known now that some crops that people consume can actually take up pharmaceuticals in untreated wastewater. Because of water shortages in the United States, especially in the West, people are starting to use wastewater to irrigate crops,鈥� said Wayland. A catalyst is a material that helps encourage a chemical reaction. It causes the reaction to occur faster than it would under normal conditions. 鈥淔or instance, you hear people say diamonds are forever,鈥� said Wayland. 鈥淲ell, diamonds actually break down, but the process is so slow, it would never happen in our lifetime. A catalyst is something that causes things that happen very slowly to happen faster, and that鈥檚 what my angle is for using a catalyst to breakdown the pollutants in wastewater.鈥� What drew Wayland to environmental chemistry was a project she worked on as an undergraduate. She analyzed the impact of the mercury industry in southwestern Arkansas by studying water soil. She also worked with the biology department to study river otters. 鈥淚 love nature,鈥� said Wayland. 鈥淚 love being outdoors. It鈥檚 really important to me to keep our environment clean or do the best that we can to engineer things preemptively鈥搕o be proactive rather than reactive when something goes wrong.鈥� After graduating in 2020, Wayland hopes to teach at the collegiate level. She wants to work in aquatic environmental chemistry and pollutant remediation.