Margaret Gerthoffer
B.S. in Biochemistry: Seton Hill University, 2018
Margaret was born in Shaler, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Seton Hill University in 2018, while working on an Honors project in the labs of Drs. Ashley Bartelson and Christine Cusick. She also participated in REU summer programs at Duquesne University (Dr. Ellen Gawalt) working on self-assembled monolayers for surface modification of titanium implant materials, and at PSU (Dr. John Asbury) studying the impact of ligand Lewis basicities on photoluminescence in lead halide perovskites. Margaret joined the Elacqua group in fall of 2018, where she works on the synthesis of carbon-based nanomaterials and donor-acceptor polymers. In her spare time, she likes to play soccer and go hiking. She tells us her eyes have embedded stimuli-responsive properties...!! We will see...
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Honors
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NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, Honorable Mention (2020)
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Department of Chemistry, Continuing Graduate Student Award (2020)
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Department of Chemistry, Service Award (2021)
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Eberly College of Science, Scholl Award in Analytical Chemistry (2021)
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Eberly College of Science, Dean's Climate and Diversity Award (2021)
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Publications
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S. M. Oburn, S. Huss, J. Cox, M. C. Gerthoffer, S. Wu, A. Biswas, M. Murphy, V. H. Crespi, J. V. Badding, S. A. Lopez, and E. Elacqua. Photochemically-Mediated Polymerization of Molecular Furan and Pyridine: Synthesis of Nanothreads at Reduced Pressures, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2022, 144, 22026-22034.
M. C. Gerthoffer, B. Xu, S. Wu, J. Cox, S. Huss, S. M. Oburn, S. A. Lopez, V. H. Crespi, J. V. Badding, and E. Elacqua. Mechanistic Insights into the Pressure-Induced Polymerization of Aryl/Perfluoroaryl Co-Crystals, Polym. Chem., 2022, 13, 1359-1368.
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S. Huss, S. Wu, B. Chen, T. Wang, M. C. Gerthoffer, D. J. Ryan, S. E. Smith, V. H. Crespi, J. V. Badding, E. Elacqua. Scalable Synthesis of Crystalline One-Dimensional Carbon Nanothreads through Modest-Pressure Polymerization of Furan, ACS Nano, 2021, 15, 4134.
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M. C. Gerthoffer, S. Wu, B. Chen, T. Wang, S. Huss, V. H. Crespi, J. V. Badding, E. Elacqua. ‘Sacrificial’ Supramolecular Assembly and Pressure-Induced Polymerization: Toward Sequence-Defined Functionalized Nanothreads, Chem. Sci., 2020, 11, 11419.