Chemistry Undergraduates Sylvia Bintrim and Laine Mosco Named Commencement Marshals

The Department of Chemistry offers congratulations to graduating chemistry students Sylvia Bintrim and Laine Mosco, who will serve respectively as the Eberly College of Science student marshal and the Department of Chemistry student marshal at the spring 2019 commencement ceremony.

Student marshals play an integral role in commencement ceremonies; they represent their college or department and lead their fellow graduates in the procession to enter the commencement hall. The title of student marshal is one of the highest honors an undergraduate student can earn at Penn State.

Both Bintrim and Mosco were selected for this important role in recognition of their exemplary academic records and their contributions to the chemistry community at Penn State.

“I feel honored and humbled to receive this recognition from the department,” Mosco says of being named a marshal.

Laine Mosco

During her time at Penn State, Mosco conducted research with Dr. Tom Mallouk, focusing on electrochemistry. She also served as a grader for Dr. Kate Masters’ organic chemistry courses, an officer of the Nittany Chemistry Society, and a Learning Assistant for Chem 227 with Dr. Dan Sykes, which was one of her favorite experiences at Penn State. “I loved being able to help assist other undergraduate students learn analytical chemistry from a student perspective,” she explains, “I enjoyed being able to facilitate group discussions and problem solving, while also building relationships and connections with the students.” While at Penn State, she was also a recipient of the John and Elizabeth Holmes Teas Scholarship, an accomplishment that she is particularly proud of.

After graduation, Mosco will be working for Covestro, a polymer materials company located in Pittsburgh. As she prepares to graduate, Mosco notes that her time at Penn State has been life changing, “Chemistry helped me find my true academic passion, she says, “it brought me my closest friends, and provided me with professional mentors.”

During her time at Penn State, Bintrim—who also double majored in math and minored in physics— served as a grader and a TA for physical chemistry courses, one of her favorite experiences at Penn State. Bintrim represented Penn State during a summer internship in Japan, a unique learning opportunity that she particularly enjoyed. She also conducted research with Dr. Gerald Knizia in theoretical chemistry and with Dr. Bratoljub Milosavljevic  in experimental physical chemistry. While working with Dr. Knizia, Bintrim worked on a density fitting multi-configurational self-consistent field method and then on theoretical covalent bond order. During her time with Dr. Milosavljevic, she studied excited state proton transfer from a photoacid to nanosized or supercooled water and also investigated how it is necessary that a certain number of water molecules surround the photoacid for proton transfer to occur.

Sylvia Bintrim

Bintrim was recently awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, and she plans to pursue a PhD in chemical physics at Columbia University after graduation.

Please join the Department of Chemistry in congratulating Bintrim and Mosco on their many accomplishments as they prepare to represent Penn State chemistry during commencement.