UNE Experience Days – Chemistry and Bio-Medical Science

This Experience Day will provide an opportunity for students to be exposed to life on campus, focusing on academic preparation, careers and hands-on experience in the UNE School of Science & Technology, with a focus on Chemistry and Bio-Medical Science.

Chemistry: Dr Erica Smith will hold a brief discussion on the connection between Willow Bark, a traditional medicine, and aspirin. Students will then use chemical techniques to synthesize (i.e., produce) aspirin in a chemistry laboratory.

Dr Erica Smith holds a Bachelor of Science with Honours from the University of Sydney (Australia), a Master of Science with Distinction from the University of Greenwich (UK) and a Doctorate in Theoretical and Computational Chemistry from the University of Houston (USA). Dr Smith’s rwill hold a bsearch, which has been published internationally, utilises computer simulations to gain atomic level understanding of biological and industrial systems.

Bio-Medical Science: Dr Mary McMillan will show students some of their own cells under a microscope, and then extract DNA from some cells. This will be followed by a short exercise in understanding how we inherit DNA and how it shapes what we look like.

Dr Mary McMillan is a former UNE student and now Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Science in the School of Science and Technology. Mary is a molecular biologist and geneticist, whose research is focused on understanding the biology and genetics of depression, and how we can better diagnose and treat it. She also loves telling science stories and is a science writer and YouTuber in her spare time.