Department Facts
Key Allegheny Benefits
- Sound preparation for graduate study, professional training, or
employment in the biochemical sciences.
- An appreciation for intellectual rigor.
- Critical reasoning skills that encompass the interplay between theory
and experiment.
- Independence, creativity and substantial laboratory skills.
- The experience of learning as a collective phenomenon and participation
in the advancement of knowledge as part of a group.
- Close student/faculty contact, especially at the junior and senior
levels.
- Professors' excellence in and commitment to teaching at all levels.
- A curriculum connecting the disciplines of biology, chemistry and
physics.
- Opportunities and facilities for student research in integrated
laboratory experiences, including the required Senior Project.
- Full integration of physics into this interdisciplinary program.
- Research-active faculty in three departments.
- Considerable external funding for equipment, supplies, course development
and summer research students.
- Rigorous academic standards.
- "Allegheny has a fabulous national reputation for science and
just in general. There are some exciting experiments in science education
going on at Allegheny. They're turning out lots of great products,
and I want to see what the secret is here." - Harry Gray, director
of the Beckman Institute at CalTech, Priestley Medalist, and past
Lord Lecturer at Allegheny
- "Hardly a day goes by that I don't fall back on skills that
were sharpened at Allegheny. I'm satisfied that I did the best thing
by having a broad background." - Ben Burtt '70, winner of four
Academy Awards, two for sound design for Star Wars, and Raiders
of the Lost Ark, and two for sound effects editing for ET
and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
- Allegheny is one of the nation's top six institutions for consistently
producing graduates earning bachelor's degree in mathematics and the
sciences, and one of the top seven for graduating women with bachelor's
degrees in math and the sciences.
- "I will never forget the professors and the high-quality liberal
arts education I received [at Allegheny]. It has enabled me to live
and work effectively in a foreign country. At Allegheny, I learned
how to think creatively and to apply scientific criteria to work and
life situations." - Becky Ann Myton, technical advisor to the
Minister of the Environment, Honduras
Student access to all departmental facilities and equipment is the
rule at Allegheny, producing research opportunities usually reserved
for graduate students at other institutions.
- Steffee Hall of Life Sciences is a state-of-the-art facility that
features combined classroom/laboratory spaces, greenhouses, darkroom,
aquatics laboratory, digital imaging laboratory, and student and faculty
research areas adjacent to faculty offices.
- All equipment is available for student use including: ultracentrifuge,
infrared and UV-visible spectrophotometers, tissue culture facilities
and equipment, optical microscopes, a liquid scintillation counter,
a PCR thermacycler, ultra-low temperature freezers, electrophoresis
equipment, cryostat, luminometer, gas and liquid chromatography, atomic
absorption spectrophotometer, liquid chromatographs, a nitrogen and
dye laser, a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer and a Fourier
transform infrared spectrometer.
- Extensive computer and projection facilities in classrooms and laboratories
are an integral part of introductory and advanced courses.
- Bousson Environmental Research Reserve, College-owned area seven
miles from campus with streams, ponds, wetlands and almost 300 acres
of woodlands.
- A recent $3.5 million renovation in Carr Hall included a new laser,
spectroscopy, and non-linear optics lab and modern physics laboratories.
Every Alleghenian completes a Senior Project in the major field - a
significant piece of original work, designed by each student under the
guidance of a faculty advisor, that demonstrates to employers and graduate
schools the ability to complete a major assignment, to work independently,
to analyze and synthesize information, and to write and speak persuasively.
Many biochemistry majors carry out independent research or collaborative
research with faculty in addition to the Senior Project.
Recent Senior Projects
- "Verification of the Interaction between FbxA and Clone 6 via
GST Fusion Protein Analysis"
