Melinda Harrison, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Chemistry
The instant she passed through the doors, Dr. Melinda Harrison was impressed with Cabrini's Antoinette Iadarola Center for Science, Education, and Technology. In fact, Harrison rates the Iadarola Center as one of the main reasons she joined the Cabrini faculty in 2008.
"The science building is a hidden gem, a completely modern facility," Harrison says. "The students who take courses here get a cutting-edge feel for science, and faculty members take pride in teaching and conducting research projects here."
At the Center, she also saw firsthand meaningful educational interaction between professors and students, which she thinks is imperative to a student's well-rounded education.
"I believe that to teach effectively in the sciences, you need to have close, personal [faculty] attention," she says. "I saw this at Cabrini." This philosophy of teaching is helping to bring real-world experience into the classroom. Harrison tries to instill in her students the concept that science is an essential part of life.
In 2008, Cabrini was one of 12 colleges and universities nationwide accepted into the 2009 Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Science Education Alliance (SEA). Harrison and Dr. David Dunbar, associate professor of biology, received an educational grant from HHMI, which will fund a research-based introductory biology course that will debut at Cabrini in the 2009-10 academic year. Harrison and Dunbar are developing the honors biology course built around a national experiment in bacteriophage genomics. (A bacteriophage, or phage, is a virus that infects bacteria.)
Her extracurricular research interests include wine chemistry, and studying how the chemicals in wood used in casks permeate the wine, lending distinct flavors and aromas; and investigating how selenium, a chemical element, is regulated in a normal cell and how much of the selenium is needed for survival.
Harrison earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from Dusquesne University, and a B.S. in chemistry and B.A. in criminology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She regularly attends the American Chemical Society's Philadelphia chapter meetings. Her students will present their research at the upcoming Poster on the Hill event in Harrisburg.
Harrison resides in West Reading, Pa. In her free time, she volunteers at local high schools promoting science awareness through demonstrations.
"Cabrini is a wonderful place to earn an education," Harrison says. "There are so many places for a student to get involved and grow throughout his or her time here."
Contact information:
Dr. Melinda Harrison
Assistant Professor, Chemistry
Iadarola Center, Room 304
610-902-8405
melinda.a.harrison@cabrini.edu