a small note...

In the article from the American Chemical Society webpage, it is mentioned that Helen Blackwell published 6 papers back in 1999, while still in school. I will be trying to find out more information about these papers in order to compare her references used as a student versus as a professional.

Stepping into the Assignment

• I read an article on the Popular Science website: http://www.popsci.com

This site provided me with a brief description of her work, as well as, key words to use in my search for information about her work.

• I looked her up on the University of Wisconsin-Madison website: http://www.chem.wisc.edu

On this site, I found a detailed profile, describing her work and listings of publications that were written by Blackwell and other authors. Only a few of the publications listed was written by Blackwell alone, so I tracked the articles down using Clarion's ILLiad feature.

• I also found information about Blackwell on the American Chemical Society (ACS) website: http://pubs.acs.org

Here I found an article about Blackwell's life, career and achievements.

As I continue my research into Blackwell's research, I plan to:

1. find the articles written by only Blackwell that were on the publication lists, in order to review her research materials, using Clarion's ILLiad and Databases (EBSCO has not been too helpful, so far)
2. search chemistry, as well as, biology resources even though she is a chemist because her work may be found under both disciplines
3. collect and review my findings, before presenting them to the class

Who is Helen E. Blackwell, Ph.D.?

born: 1972
birth place: Cleveland, OH
education: completed undergraduate at Oberlin College and graduate school at California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
current occupation: Organic Chemist / Chemistry Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
her work: Because bacterial organisms cause infections by forming groups and communicating with one another, Blackwell has created a chemical compound, solution-75, which distorts bacterial communication and could be used to protect the body from infection.