Technical chemistry engineering programme builds on collaboration in Orlando

Stina Jansson and Lisa Lundin during the visit at Kennedy Space Center.

Lisa Lundin and Stina Jansson, Department of Chemistry, are currently in New Orleans where they are attending the ACS Spring 2024 conference thanks to funding from the faculty's education committee. The purpose of the trip is to learn about research related to teaching chemistry. The presentations show that many challenges faced by teachers and students are in many respects the same regardless of country and education system.

Last spring, Lisa and Stina initiated a collaboration with Nicole Lapeyrouse at the University of Central Florida, UCF, Orlando, USA on the new Master of Science in Technical Chemistry Engineering programme. The trip to the conference in New Orleans was combined with a visit to UCF to build on this collaboration.

Lisa Lundin and Stina Jansson together with Erin Saitta at UCF in Orlando.

"During the week in Orlando, we have had the opportunity to interact with researchers in chemistry education, several teachers and staff working with teaching and support functions for teaching at UCF. The conversations have given us many ideas on how we can develop our teaching at the department" says Lisa Lundin. "This is just the beginning of a long cooperation between the universities and we are already planning how we will continue to benefit from each other's knowledge in different ways."

Stina Jansson has already collaborated with researchers at the Kennedy Space Centre and one of the days in Florida was spent there, as Stina was invited to give a presentation on her research on fluorinated chemicals in waste. After that, Annie Meier, a chemical engineer and researcher at the Kennedy Space Centre, gave a tour of their laboratories and testing facilities.

Stina Jansson has collaborated with NASA and during the visit at Kennedy Space Center they got a tour of laboratories and testing faciliities.