Michelle Kovarik, Ph.D.

mkovarik@email.unc.edu

Department of Chemistry

Education

Indiana University - Bloomington
Analytical Chemistry

Mentors

• Nancy Allbritton, Ph.D.

Biography

SPIRE Biography

As a new SPIRE participant, I am excited to start my research at UNC, to develop as a teacher and mentor, and to gain additional classroom experience. I went to graduate school at Indiana University with the goal of becoming a college professor, but during my graduate career I received external fellowship funding which exempted me from departmental teaching assignments. While this limited my formal classroom experience, it allowed me to pursue additional research projects and to spend time on community outreach in science education. In 2007, I volunteered to work with the IU chemistry department’s Service Learning in Chemistry course, supervising and assisting undergraduates in leading weekly activities at the Bloomington Boys’ and Girls’ Club. In late 2009, I worked with the IU Nanoscience Center and a local high school teacher to create and implement a problem-based learning module on gold nanoparticle synthesis and atomic force microscopy at Columbus Signature Academy.

As both an undergraduate at Saint Louis University and as a graduate student, my research interests focused on miniaturized chemical analysis systems. The unique behavior of matter at the micro- and nanoscale can be employed to improve and automate traditional analysis techniques, and my graduate work was directed at phenomena influencing nanofluidic device performance. For my postdoctoral work I will apply my fundamental understanding of microfluidic systems to sophisticated studies of biological problems. In the Allbritton lab at UNC, I will be using microfluidic devices to assay enzyme activity in individual leukemia cells.

While in the SPIRE program, I look forward to developing my classroom skills by working more extensively with university-level students and subject matter. I know from my undergraduate experience that professors who incorporate their research interests into courses are more enthusiastic and help students appreciate the creative nature of scientific research – something which is often missing from traditional lectures and “cookbook” style laboratory courses. The field of microfluidics and its applications draw upon chemistry, physics, biology, and engineering, and the interdisciplinary nature of this research makes it relevant to both introductory and advanced coursework.  I am eager to bring some of these cross-disciplinary concepts and all of my enthusiasm to one of the SPIRE partner institutions

 

Courses

• Fall 2011
  • Quantitative Analysis II + lab, North Carolina A&T State University
• Spring 2011
  • General Chemistry, North Carolina A&T State University

Publications

• Kovarik, ML, Allbritton, NL 2011. Measuring enzyme activity in single cells.  Trends Biotechnol. 29(5):222-230. PMCID: PMC3080453.

  Kovarik, M.L., Lai, H.-H., Xiong, J.C., and Allbritton, N.L. Sample transport and electrokinetic injection in a microchip device for chemical cytometry, Electrophoresis, (in press).