Meet the Professor: Rachel Narehood Austin

Introducing…. Professor Rachel Narehood Austin! Before joining the Barnard Department of Chemistry in 2015, she taught at Bates College for 20 years. In her own research, she focuses on neurochemistry and environmental/green chemistry. At Barnard, Professor Austin is a Diana T. and P. Roy Vagelos Professor of Chemistry, teaching Chemical Problem Solving, Chemistry I, Chemistry IV, Chemistry I Advanced Spectroscopy Laboratory, Inorganic Chemistry, and Quantitative Analysis Lab. She also facilitates Undergraduate Research Opportunities. Professor Austin has received many impressive awards and honors, including the 2004 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching, Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, and more, including prestigious funding for her own research. She has also published many, many papers- ranging from Teaching Chemistry in Context: Environmental Lead Exposure to Use of Surface Hydroxyl Frequencies to Identify the Exposed Facets of Pyrogenic TiO2 Nanoparticles. 

To be honest, I don’t know what a lot of the words in the second title mean, but I can attest to how brilliant Professor Austin is. She’s an incredible professor, with amazing patience and a deep love of learning together. I sometimes experience a disconnect with some professors, simply due to a hierarchy produced by the knowledge gap between me and the professor. But with Professor Austin,  I never felt any of that.  In her class, no question was a dumb question, and she really sought to meet students where they were at with enthusiasm and care. I could continue to shower Professor Austin with all her very positive characteristics and strengths, but without further ado, I’ll get into the interview! 

Thank you so much for participating in this interview. To start off, would you mind introducing yourself? Maybe share a fun fact too, if you would like.

1.  Hello! I am Rachel Narehood Austin, professor of chemistry at Barnard College. Fun fact: I was not given a middle name by my parents so when I got married I turned my birth name into my middle name and now my initials are RNA--very cool!

That is very cool indeed! Wish mine was as cool and science-y as yours is; as far as I know, AGY doesn’t have any cool meaning in chemistry! Anyways, I was curious: what do you like about teaching at Barnard?

2. I like working with serious students who are eager to help others and make the world a better place and who are open to new ideas and who are respectful of their peers.

Yes, agreed. I have always felt the supportive environments created by professors and peers alike. What are some of your favorite classes you teach/have taught at Barnard?

3. I've enjoyed all of the courses I've taught at Barnard. Each one is different and has its own "personality". Of course teaching general chemistry is a special thing because I get to work with students just beginning their journey in chemistry and it is fun to help them see that chemistry is useful and relevant. I also taught our advanced spectroscopy lab once and a piece of equipment we needed was broken so we created an entirely different project based lab using carminic acid, which is a pigment we extracted from lice. We ended up writing that work up as a class for the Journal of Chemical Education.  As an inorganic chemist, I love teaching inorganic chemistry, which I don't do often at Barnard because Professor Mike Campbell is also an inorganic chemist and that is primarily his responsibility. But I taught it last spring and enjoyed that. I also want to mention that teaching general chemistry and the five associated special topics in chemistry courses that I created this fall was a lot more fun than I had feared as they were all fully remote. I attribute the success of the fall semester to the great attitude of our students.

Aw, I love that. But also, WOW! That’s so cool to hear about the research your Advanced Spectroscopy course could publish, simply by doing amazing lab work in a classroom setting! Speaking of research,  could you please talk about some of your current or recent research that you’re excited about?

4. I have three separate research projects in my group.  In one project, we are purifying and trying to structurally characterize a metalloenzyme that plays a very important role in the degradation of oil in the environment.  We've made some exciting progress on this project due to the work of two Beckman scholars, Shoshana Williams '20, who is currently a first year graduate student in chemistry at Stanford, and Juliet Lee, a current senior. In another project we are studying the metalloprotein MT3, which plays an enigmatic role in the chemistry of metals in the brain. This is a collaborative project with my friend and colleague Professor Christina Vizcarra.  And in yet another project, we are working on catalysts for biofuel production.  

I really admire your focus on the intersection between Environmentalism and Chemistry; it’s a very important intersection indeed. I’m curious about the intersection of your teaching and your research as well. How does your research inform your pedagogy and curriculum, and how does your teaching experience inform your research?

5. Being a scientist keeps me humble. I am so aware all the time of how much I do not know and how important the moment by moment actions I make in the lab are to the quality of the data I generate, which is what allows us to learn more about the world around us. Teaching, when seen through the lens of research, is about developing the skills and the presence of mind to be an effective scientist. I teach a much broader range of subjects than I would need to use in my research and yet I'm often pleased by how a subject that I just taught helps me understand my research more deeply. As your question suggests, there is an incredible synergy between these two activities, which makes my job so much fun. I love coming to work every day, and am more grateful than ever for the ability to do so.

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your time and experiences with us! You’re a hugely important part of the Chemistry community here on campus, not to mention the entire STEM community and Barnard Community as a whole. Thank you again!