ACS Western Regional Meeting

10/25/2025

The American Chemical Society often holds regional conventions dedicated to spotlighting the achievements, challenges, and opportunities of each ACS region.

This year, members of the UCSC Chemistry Club attended the ACS Western Regional Meeting (WRM) in San Jose. We had five members attend the weekend events, along with select events on Monday and Tuesday. We are so thankful to have been able to attend this year's meeting, as it has been so accessible to our undergraduate members!

Click the Read More tab in the bottom right to get a more detailed description of our experiences.!

Plenarys, seminars, and Panels

SCIENCE COMMUNICATION

WASTEWATER TREATMENT AND REFINEMENT

Included in our favorite experiences of the conference were the various seminars, panels and plenary speakers:
- Science communication and scientific journalism panel
- Plenary speaker, Dr. William Tarpeh from Stanford University, on wastewater refinement, "Electrochemical Wastewater Refining: Building Bridges Across Length Scales"
- Chemical Biology Oral Presentations: Bridging Chemistry and Biology: Covalent Inhibition in Drug Discovery

- Agricultural Chemistry Oral Presentations: "Chemistry of Agriculture"
- "Empowering Women in Organic Chemistry (EWOC) Research Symposium"
- Plenary lecture, "Where has the Trust Gone: Changing Attitudes in America's Trust in Science and Scientists" by Dr. Judith Giordan (Managing Director ecosVC and 2023 ACS President)

THE CHEMISTRY OF BEER

RESTORING TRUST IN SCIENCE

- "The Art and Science of Brewing Beer" Oral Presentations: by Dr. Glen Fox of UC Davis (raw materials of beer combined with current research on the chemistry of brewing)

Supporting fellow Slugs: Students and their Research

Outside of our five member attendees, we also got to support five more amazing Banana Slugs as they presented about their research in oral/poster presentations!

RILEY WATERSON

Riley (Chem '26) is a undergrad in the Scott Oliver Lab, where she works on sustainable energy and finding new ways to make post-consumer products into carbon-neutral fuels. She loved being a part of this ACS conference! She noted that everyone was very kind, and it was a really good first foray into a more advanced scientific space.

Presenting to undergraduates was especially nice, since it was a lot less intimidating. It was a little bit nerve-racking, but all of the audience members were attentive and asked good questions. I also so appreciate all of the chem club members coming to support!!

Overall, Riley thought the conference as a whole was very informative and a really great way to acclimate herself to a post-undergraduate experience!

EMMA KREBBS