Lakeland Mirror

Issue date: 10/9/08 Section: Features

Lena Yurs is a Lakeland College alumna and a third year physical chemistry graduate student at UW- Madison.
On Monday, Oct. 6, Lena came back to Lakeland to talk to undergraduate students about both the work she has accomplished in graduate school thus far, and why graduate school may be an option for some current Lakeland undergrads.
Lena was one of two guests asked to come speak to the principles of chemistry I and the quantum chemistry classes. The lecture during the general chemistry course was open not only to students from the "organic" or "analytical" chemistry classes but to the Lakeland community. The turnout made it evident that this opportunity was not overlooked.
One of the most accommodating rooms in the Lucius P. Chase Center building for the natural sciences was packed with students and professors, eager to hear what Lena had to say.
Lena's presentation, entitled "Photovoltaic Devices and Materials," was a brief overview of what she has been researching the past few years at UW-Madison under the John C. Wright group.
"Energy consumption is increasing," said Lena. "And it is projected to increase further."
She proceeded to talk about renewable energy sources, with a focus on solar energy. "If you do the calculation, there is enough energy shining on the earth, in one hour, to power the whole planet for a year. That's how much is here for us to use, but we don't know how to harness that."
She went on to describe the process of photosynthesis. "There is a part we don't understand once you get inside these photosynthetic complexes, the molecules that actually take the light and turn it into useable energy and storage," she said.
"There is research being done right now on these photosynthetic complexes to try to understand the mechanism and the how the plants are able to do it," Lena said. "The thought is if we can understand how plants are able to accomplish this maybe we can mimic what they do."
Although the presentation of her research did not inspire every person in the room, half of the attendees were science majors. Some students really became intrigued by Lena's research.
"I think that she is in a similar field that I want to go into, and I learned a lot about her research and her interests," said sophomore Amber Koenig. "I think it was a very good opportunity because you got to hear a student's perspective more-so than reading about it or hearing different teachers' perspective. And you got to learn the struggles they had and what they liked about it. And you got the more real picture of it."

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