Santa Monica College Chemistry Teacher Wins Award

By Lookout Staff

August 28, 2012 -- A Santa Monica College chemistry professor will use the money she won from the SMC Foundation to buy equipment that will give students hands-on experience in the lab.

As recipient of the Northrup Grumman/Marvin Elkin Chair of Excellence in Physical Sciences, Deborah H. Schwyter will receive $5,000 a year for each of the next three years for a special project of her choice.

Schwyter said she will use the funds to purchase spectrophotometry equipment and supplies to better analyze compounds relevant in clinical, environmental and agricultural laboratories.

“With access to the scanning spectrophotometer, students will get ‘hands-on’ experience in a way that is more similar to equivalent courses at four-year institutions,” Schwyter said.

The first of ten such endowments established at SMC in 2000, the Northrup Grumman/Marvin Elkin Chair of Excellence in Physical Sciences was created and managed by the SMC Foundation.

Other endowments are given in fine arts, life science, communication, performing arts, philosophy and social science, music, business, earth science and nursing.

“Dr. Schwyter is a perfect example of how our faculty are resourceful in finding ways to bring a four-year university level experience to our students,” said SMC President Dr. Chui L. Tsang.

“She is to be congratulated in coming up with a proposal that will truly enrich our chemistry students’ academic experience.”

Schwyter, who received her Ph.D. in biochemistry from UCLA, has taught chemistry and biochemistry at SMC since 1995. She has been a post-doctoral fellow at UCLA and Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and has been a lecturer and visiting professor at UCLA.