Senior chemistry student Catherine Evers Smith currently works with Dr. Arumugam’s research team. She explains her research: 
"The research team had previously shown that compounds with gold and ferrocene groups increase oxidative stress in cancer cells. This is because the gold attacks thiol which inhibits the antioxidant pathway and the ferrocenes ability to oxidize easily. My research looks at what happens to the oxidation of the ferrocenes when we switch the counter ion on the compound. My goal then was to switch the counter ion on tested [Bis-(1,3-di(ferrocenyl methyl)imidazole-2-ylidene)-gold(II)] [chloride] from chloride to tetrafluoroborate. Unfortunately, the electrochemical analysis (CV and DPV) showed the same results for the starting and ending material meaning the reaction was unsuccessful using sodium tetrafluoroborate. My next step is to use triethyl oxonium hexafluorophosphate instead of the sodium tetrafluoroborate to switch the counter ion and then see if the oxidation states of the known compound and the new one differ significantly.
I presented this research at three poster events: Posters in the Hall (Chemistry Department event), an ACS Dayton regional meeting, and the Celebration of Research event. It was definitely a learning experience. I was much more comfortable presenting the third event and I was able to learn so much from the people presenting around me. Each session allowed me to learn about different people’s research and presentation styles. I really loved how diverse the topics and approaches were. I don’t think you could attend and not leave inspired to think in a different way by at least one of the presenters. I am grateful that I was given the opportunity to share my research and see other people’s."
