Beth Morton

Background

About Beth Morton

I am a chemistry professor, currently teaching at University of Portland. I love sharing my excitement about chemistry with others in an atmosphere where students can know me as more than the person at the front of the room. I hope to teach students the basics of chemistry and motivate them to explore it through research and further education. I also enjoy getting K-12 students excited about science at an early age and do so through various informal science education organizations. I defended my PhD in the Chemistry Department at the Pennsylvania State University in 2013. My research was conducted as part ofthe Schaak Research Group. My last three years were funded through a Department of Energy Office of Science Graduate Fellowship which I received through a competitive application process. Our lab is a synthetic inorganic chemistry lab working in the areas of solid-state chemistry and nanoscience. My research involved using bacteriophage M13 and phage display to identify material specific peptides and to probe the degree of specificity that these peptides have for the target material. I gained experience as a teaching assistant at Penn State and as a math and chemistry tutor at the University of New Haven helping students with courses ranging from general chemistry and algebra to advanced chemistry and math courses.