The supporting material – including guided inquiry activities and laboratory exercises for the second edition of The Science of Cooking by Provost, Colabroy, Kelly, Corrigan-Steffey and Wallert can be found HERE.
The group after Jon defended his honors thesis and right before all the seniors represented chemistry and biochemistry at multi disciplinary poster session celebrating experiential learning and the Boundless campaign.
From our seniors…
Amen Taye (’25)
“…one of the most important things I learned was how much I’ve grown both personally and professionally through my time in the lab. While applying for jobs, I found that most of my interview answers, whether personal or professional, were based on my experiences here. The lab gave me a chance to build both hard and soft skills that are highly transferable, and it helped me realize how far I’ve come from having minimal experience to gaining real confidence in myself as a scientist.
While the science itself wasn’t necessarily new to me this semester, I believe I refined my technical and troubleshooting abilities by engaging with the challenges my mentees faced. This mentoring experience not only shaped my semester but also taught me meaningful life skills that I’ll carry forward
…you can do anything so long as you put your mind to it and are willing to put in the work.Â
She has pushed me to accomplish more than I believed possible in two and a half years.
The Colabroy Lab Spring 2025
We will miss Jon (who heads off to Cornell for a PhD), Bernice (heading off to Virginia Tech for a PhD), Amen (joining a clinical research group at U Penn) and Or-El (joining a clinical trials team in Boston).
On March 25, 2025, Or-El Ankori traveled to the Capital building in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She presented her work alongside other PA Undergraduate Research students in the Main Rotunda.
Or-El shares her concluding remarks on this experience: “Since we were set up near the entrance, a diverse array of visitors stopped by my poster to learn more and ask questions. I spoke with people from all walks of life—students from various majors, an accountant, a security guard, and even a Muhlenberg alumna! The most meaningful part of the experience for me was sharing my passion for science with individuals who weren’t necessarily familiar with my project and seeing their understanding grow as I explained its significance to both my lab group and the broader scientific community. I am incredibly grateful to Dr. Colabroy, Dr. Takahashi, and the Muhlenberg administration for providing me with this invaluable opportunity to engage with science and research in a way I never have before.”
In Summer 2020, I worked with five students remotely. It’s hard to do chemistry remotely. But we did our best. Here are their presentations from the Celebration of Student Research and Scholarship in October 2020. I’m so proud of what we managed to accomplish. Alex and Miranda’s work spanned more than just the summer, since they are seniors now. But David’s work really contributed to the publication I’m writing, and Paige and Snow’s work became part of BCM 341: Experimental Biochemistry in Fall 2020.
