Research experiences lead to Fulbright award

Senior chemistry major Ashlan Musante has won a Fulbright Scholarship that will allow her to join the research of Dr. Tanja Weil at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany. The team's work involves the design and characterization of customized polymeric architectures.

"One of the most interesting applications for this type of dual synthetic and natural macromolecule is target-specific drug delivery," Musante wrote in her application to the Fulbright committee. "Dr. Weil and other polymer scientists have utilized the marriage of polymers and biomaterials as an ideal means for this type of precise" targeting.

A Wheaton Balfour Scholar, the Sunderland, Mass., resident has been an active researcher throughout her undergraduate career. As a first-year student, Musante served as a research assistant to Wheaton Professor of Biology Bob Morris, and she contributed to his collaboration with other researchers in mapping the genome of the sea urchin. That experience yielded Musante her first credits on two research journal articles (in Science and Developmental Biology, 2006), and helped her win a National Science Foundation undergraduate research grant to fund a summer laboratory internship.

The NSF grant supported a laboratory internships with Professor David Hackney at Carnegie Mellon, looking at sections of proteins to see how they interact. While abroad at the University of Wollongong, Musante worked in a chemistry lab there. And upon her return, she pursued a research project at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst's Department of Polymer Science and Engineering (PSE), an interdisciplinary team of scientists trained in various areas of chemistry, engineering and physics.

Presently, Musante is completing an honors thesis on the role that methyl-cobalt complexes play in methylating different species of mercury under the direction of chemistry professors Jani Benoit and Chris Khlberg.

"One of the great advantages of working on such a wide array of research projects is the knowledge I have gained in a range of laboratory techniques and procedures," Musante said. However, the most important piece of wisdom I have taken away from the whole of my time in the laboratory is that the most exciting research does not take place in a vacuum, which is precisely what draws me to the interdisciplinary field of bio-polymer science."

Musante's scholarship has won her numerous academic honors, including the Barry M. Goldwater Fellowship, which is awarded to outstanding college sophomores and juniors in the fields of mathematics, science and engineering. She is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society and the Tri-Beta Biological Honors Society. Beyond the classroom and laboratory, Musante plays flute with the Southeastern Massachusetts Wind Symphony and serves as co-president of the student-run Tutoring Outreach program that serves Norton school students.

She credits Wheaton for providing the opportunities and encouragement to find her academic path. "I know that I would not have received the attention and interest from professors that I have gotten here at Wheaton. And that interest makes a big difference."