For the Fall 2021 semester, the Beloit College Chemistry Department is pleased to welcome two new faculty members. Dr. Taylor Arhar will join the department as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry, teaching biochemistry courses including Chemistry 300: DNA & Protein Biochemistry and Chemistry 260: Nutrition and Metabolism: Biochemical Mechanisms. She will also teach sections of Chemistry 117: Introductory Chemistry, regularly. Prof. Arhar joins the department after completing her graduate studies at the University of California San Francisco, where she studied molecular chaperones, which fight against the protein aggregation that occurs in diseases like Alzheimer’s. Prof. Arhar loves to get outside and hike, bike, run, ski, or kayak. She’s especially excited to learn cross-country skiing during her first winter in the Midwest!

 

Dr. Orion Pearce, who taught Spring 2021 online sections of Chemistry 117: Introductory Chemistry and Chemistry 240: Thermodynamics and Kinetics, will continue as a Visiting Professor of Chemistry, and will teach Chemistry 117 in the Fall, and will teach Chemistry 220: Environmental, Analytical, and Geochemistry and Chemistry 150: Nanochemistry in the Spring of 2022. Prof. Pearce’s research interests involve using light to power chemical reactions, having completed his Ph.D. researching solar fuels at the University of Colorado in Boulder and a Postdoc researching novel solar cell materials at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. When not working in chemistry, Orion enjoys riding his bicycle, cooking, building Arduino projects, and playing Dungeons and Dragons.