Katie is from Kenna, West Virginia. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Charleston (WV) with a B.S. in Biology and Chemistry and was named Senior of the Year in May 2011. She spent her summers as an undergrad interning with the WV Department of Environmental Protection in the Watershed Assessment Branch. Her undergraduate research under Dr. Xiaoping Sun focused on spectroscopic study of the uranyl ion, but in the McLean lab she is developing skills with instrument building in the mass spectrometry field.


Awards:
Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology Fellowship (2011), Vanderbilt University

Publications:
X. Sun and K. Leaptrot, Effects of Various Ligands on Spectroscopic Properties of the Uranyl Ion, J. Undergrad. Chem. Res., 2011, 10, 162-165.