As an undergraduate, Angela (Panzica) Sasaki Cole ’19 couldn’t decide what to study — or more accurately, she couldn’t decide what not to study. “I went to the Academic Fair and wanted to sign up for everything,” she recalled with a laugh.
Located on the 10th floor of a highrise building with the skyline of Manhattan as the backdrop, Albion College students recently got a glimpse into a future that most had never envisioned.
Philanthropic efforts, including a matching gift from Lisa and James Wilson, ’79, ’77, facilitate Albion’s purchase of a new nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer, a “workhorse” in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department.
The Wilson Institute for Medicine and Brown Honors Program member is one of just 12 students nationwide to win a 2021 Undergraduate Research Award from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
“I feel like at a bigger school, I’d be very intimidated to talk to my professor in that way, where we can be vulnerable with each other. Having that small faculty-to-student ratio makes it very comfortable to have conversations like that.”
The “Big Bang” may have started the universe but it’s likely that smaller bangs played a key role in life on Earth, say Albion College physics professor Nicolle Zellner and chemistry professor Vanessa McCaffrey.
