Chemists Have More Fun
Patrick Lang ’08 majored in chemistry with a correlate in French, tutored chemistry and math at the Learning and Teaching Center, did two summers of URSI [Undergraduate Research Summer Institute] with chemistry professor Sarjit Kaur...and wrangled a semester in Paris his junior year.
Q. Where are you from, and how did you choose Vassar?
I’m from western Massachusetts, Great Barrington. I heard about Vassar when they sent me a pamphlet from admissions. I hadn’t ever heard of it— surprisingly, since I live 60 miles away. And all my mom knew about it was that she thought it was a really good school. I really liked the pamphlet! It really stood out. And then I obviously did a lot of research and essentially just applied to Vassar. I did apply to other schools, but I’m not sure that I would have gone to them if I didn’t get in here. It just seemed like the right thing to do, going to Vassar...and it turned out to be!
Q. Did you come knowing you were going to major in science?
Pretty much. It was either chemistry of environmental science, and after being here a few weeks I quickly turned toward chemistry because the chemistry department is really really amazing here.
Q. Who are you working with?
I’m working with Sarjit Kaur. She’s basically the polymer chemist in the department, and we’ve been working together for a few years. I’ve been doing independent research with her, and I’ve had a lot of opportunities due to that. It all started when I was doing a summer teaching job with her in the Exploring Transfer program. The students from community colleges come here for 10 weeks during the summer and take accelerated courses to get a feel for what a residential college experience is like. So I was a counselor in the dorm and the TA [teaching assistant] in their forensic chemistry class. It was a very mixed group. Some had never had a chemistry course, some had. I spent lots of nights in Mudd Chemistry with the students, just going over basic concepts—like, what is a chemical compound? So I had a really great teaching experience. Coupled with the research, it’s been really cool.
Last semester, I was an SI [Supplemental Instruction] leader in the Learning and Teaching Center—a peer facilitator who holds sessions twice a week. One part of it is making sure that the students who come know the material, and the other part is pushing them a little bit further so that they can perform even better on exams. I was an SI in math as well.
Q. Did you do URSI?
I did two URSI summers with Professor Kaur. The first summer, I actually did URSI while I was doing ET, so it was a pretty intense summer.
Q. Can you explain the research?
Hydrogen fuel cells could possibly replace internal combustion engines in vehicles. And one of the components of a hydrogen fuel cell is the proton exchange membrane. So we develop new proton exchange membranes. They’re kind of the consistency of a ziplock bag. So I start with a bunch of powders, do some reactions, and then at the end of the day, I have this material that I can touch and manipulate. So that’s kind of cool. Most times chemistry isn’t something you can touch; it’s something that happens in a beaker with solutions and powders. But with this project I was actually creating materials. And I’m just about to wrap up the thesis where I developed several of these proton exchange membranes, each of which performs differently and has certain advantages.
Q. Is this something that will have a practical application pretty soon?
Yes, potentially. Granted, there are lots of people in the world working on similar stuff with different products. The nice thing about chemistry is even if you focus on one application, what you’re working on will inevitably be useful in something else. So there are other aspects of chemistry and of industry where these types of materials could be used.
Q. Did you get to publish anything yet?
Not yet. I think over the summer I’m going to publish what I started working on two summers ago. I’m going to graduate school at the University of Minnesota in the fall, so I’m going to take a much needed break between now and then.
Q. When did you first start doing research?
I started doing research with Joe Tanski when I was a freshman, and pretty much at the moment I started, I realized that I wanted to go to graduate school, and I knew that I wanted to teach because I watched him doing his thing day to day, and it really seemed to be an appealing life. And he made a difference. He was important in so many students’ lives.
Q. So you’re planning to get the PhD and teach at the college level.
I think so.
Q. What’s the best class you’ve taken besides chemistry?
It was a French class called Classical Music and Text in the Modern Age. I had never studied music in any form, and it was really rewarding because I ended up writing a final paper comparing a classical piece with a poem by the same name. And it was just something I had never done, and something I really loved. Claire de Lune was the piece....which is really beautiful. ITunes keeps track of how many times you’ve played things, and 17 is my highest until you get to Claire de Lune., which is 65 because I studied it for so long.
Q. How did you decide to get a correlate in French?
In high school, I loved speaking it, and I definitely didn’t want to give it up. So it was kind of obvious. I continued and ended up going abroad, which is kind of uncommon for science majors, especially chemistry. I went to Paris. It’s hard to say enough about that. It was incredible. And I did take a chemistry class in French. The funny thing is, despite the language complications, which weren’t that difficult because I was pretty well prepared, I got the highest grade in the class. And I attribute that to just being used to working hard at Vassar. But Paris was unbelievable.