About the Associate Director

Sarah C. Larsen, is currently an Associate Professor of Chemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS). Professor Larsen has research interest in the applications of nanocrystalline zeolites to environmental remediation, decontamination and drug delivery. Professor Larsen has expertise in synthesis, characterization and functionalization of nanocrystalline zeolites and hollow zeolite structures. Her research is currently funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Army Research Office, Department of Energy and the Petroleum Research Fund.

Professor Larsen has been involved with educational efforts in nanoscience and nanotechnology. She has developed and taught a First Year Seminar course (Spring, 2003, Fall, 2005) entitled: Explorations in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. She is involved in an NSF funded collaborative chemical education research project (with R. Larsen and N. Pienta) focused on developing nanoscience laboratory experiments for undergraduate chemistry courses (for both science and nonscience majors). Professor Larsen has also been active in a Communicating Science to the Public Initiative at The University of Iowa . As part of this initiative, she implemented a communicating science module into an upper level undergraduate chemistry laboratory course in Fall 2004.

In the past three years, Professor Larsen has authored or co-authored over 10 publications in the area of nanoscience and nanotechnology including an invited chapter in the Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology published by Marcell Dekker in 2004 and an invited chapter in a book entitled Nanoscale Science and Engineering Education: Issues, Trends and Future Directions (to be published by American Scientific Publishers in 2006). Professor Larsen currently serves on the executive committees of the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research and the Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination. She is also a past chair of the CLAS Faculty Assembly.