Elizabeth Jenkins El

I work on immobilizing molecular catalysts onto hydrogen-terminated silicon electrodes, essentially building tiny chemical systems that can drive this conversion efficiently. The goal is to better understand how these catalysts behave when anchored to a surface, a key step toward scalable, clean energy solutions. This project sits at the intersection of electrochemistry, materials science, and sustainability, and it's teaching me that the most important scientific questions are rarely simple ones.

Using a stepping stone model, I tracked how allele frequencies and linkage disequilibrium shift across three populations over time, then compared those results to what Felsenstein originally found, which pointed to recombination and natural selection as the main barriers to speciation in wild populations.

The project investigated the resistance of common plastics to degradation using solvents including acetone, apple cider vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, and lemon juice, finding that more acidic and neutral pH solutions were ineffective against rigid plastics. The second component explored bioplastic synthesis, comparing starch-citric acid polymers and starch-glycerol polymers in terms of flexibility, transparency, and structural integrity.