The NMU Chemistry Department recently hosted the annual Student Research Symposium of the UP local of the American Chemical Society. The event is for undergraduate and graduate students who are from the Upper Peninsula or attending a U.P. institution. NMU students June Kowalski and Kathryn Kulju won first prize in the undergraduate division for their poster, "High Performance Liquid Chromatography Method Development for the Separation and Purification of Vanadium (IV) Oxide-based MRI Contrast Reagents.”

Their faculty mentor is Eugene Wickenheiser and the project is a collaboration between Wickenheiser and Professor Greg Karczmar from the University of Chicago.

Forty-five posters were submitted and more than 80 students participated from the following universities: NMU, Michigan Tech, Lake Superior State and Lawrence University.