Dang Nguyen has been named one of our Spring 2016 Undergraduates of the Quarter and we couldn’t be happier for him. Dang was born in Colorado, but his parents moved to Portland when he was three-years-old, so he considers himself an Oregonian. He attended Clackamas High School where he was first exposed to Chemistry by his OSU Alumni Chemistry Teacher, Mr. Sytsma.
Being one of the best engineering schools in the country and fairly close to home, OSU quickly became the clear choice for him however, during his freshman year, everything changed. Dang commented on one of the turning points in his life, speaking about Dr. Richard Nafshun, who was his General Chemistry at the time. “He has a teaching style that made me want to learn more about chemistry. The more chemistry I took, the more I enjoyed it; so, I switched.”
Dang has been doing undergraduate research with Maduka Ogba in Professor Paul Cheong’s lab for almost two years. He said they were working on non-classical hydrogen bonding research using computational chemistry, something he found very interesting. At the end of the academic year, they were working on a manuscript that Dang is hoping will reach publication.
He was unable to list just one favorite instructor, but was pretty adamant that his favorite class was experimental chemistry. “Experimental chemistry is more of an application and hands-on experience. I like this class because it’s a bridge between the two core concepts that one needs to fully understand a subject; theory and implementation.”
During his spare time, Dang is the president of the Chemistry Club. He also is an undergraduate TA for the general chemistry 12x and 23x sections and worked in the mole hole tutoring students. Upon graduation, he will be attending graduate school here at OSU, in the College of Education in the hopes of getting his Masters. He plans on teaching high school chemistry and math in the future; saying his teaching style is to use a lot of demos and applications. He feels like high school is the best place to do that.
Congratulations to Dang for being named a Spring 2016 Undergraduate of the Quarter. We’re proud to add you to this growing list of great students!