Sarah Sweger Email & Phone Number

Madison, Wisconsin, United States

Seattle, Washington, United States

• Develop and implement curriculum for project-based learning for the summer academy STEM Skills courses for high school students from low-income and first-generation backgrounds.• Curriculum includes developing a research question, conducting independent research, and presenting research to peers. Example projects include: Designing, building, and testing water filters, building and coding autonomous robots with Arduino, and testing UV protection methods against genetically modified bacteria.• Coordinate and oversee instructors of 5 sections of the STEM Skills courses.• Mentor students 1-on-1 in matters of STEM education including course material in math and science, course planning, college applications, and financial aid.

Seattle, Washington, United States

Work with high school students participating in the UW STEMsub program to understand and apply concepts taught in the STEM courses and providing extra support in preparation for assessments.

Seattle, Washington, United States

Developed updated project modules and provided instructional support for a in-person summer academy depending on student interest including designing and building water filters, building and coding autonomous robots, and testing UV protection methods against genetically modified yeast cultures. Helped students develop a research question and design an infographic with on the topic from information collected through academic research articles.

Seattle, Washington, United States

• Coordinated and led skills-based, survivor-centered training for Academic Student Employees focusing on preventing sexual harassment and gender discrimination in academic settings.• Collected and analyzed survey data to assess experiences with harassment, campus resources, and campus climate. Prepared and presented reports with UW community and program stakeholders.• Collected, analyzed, and implemented feedback on program trainings and tools. Developed training dashboard to easily track program training data and assist in developing and achieving program training goals.• Developed curriculum to ensure trainings provided a range of skills for shifting departmental cultures and norms including new modules on setting and maintaining boundaries and identifying and addressing microaggressions

Seattle, Washington, United States

Bayesian probabilistic analysis of DEER data:• Developed analysis tool to tackle ill-posed inversion problem necessary to elucidate protein structural information from experimental data.• Implemented two Bayesian inference approaches in PyMC with custom sampling methods to analyze large experimental data sets and obtain statistical results for parametric and non-parametric models.• Data output by the analysis fully quantified uncertainty in the model and was visualized using custom plots implemented using Matplotlib and ArviZ.• Results of both Bayesian inference models were compared against one another as well as uncertainty results produced by bootstrapping.Effect of spin polarization on DEER spectroscopy: • Implemented a numerical Monte Carlo simulation with MATLAB to show a previously unknown phase effect upon the distributions of polarized spins in the presence of a magnetic field. Code could simulate environment at different temperatures, concentrations, magnetic fields, and sample shapes.• Confirmed phase effect via analytical derivation from first principles.• Showed effect experimentally at multiple magnetic fields and temperatures.

Seattle, Washington, United States

Assisted in teaching a range of chemistry courses for undergraduate and graduate students including introductory, quantum, and computational chemistry. Duties included reviewing course material, facilitating laboratory experiments or code implementation, and grading.Courses: General chemistry (CHEM 142/152/162), Computational Chemistry (CHEM 465/565), Quantum Chemistry (CHEM 455)

Seattle, Washington, United States

Summer 2019: Aided students in formulating a research idea in a mock proposal scenario that culminated in a report and presentation as well as design and implement a solar car project for an end of the summer competition.Summer 2020: Aided staff in modifying structure to work with online curriculum. Helped students identify a research area of interest and develop a research poster with literature study, survey results, and/or at-home experiments.Summer 2021: Developed updated project modules for a dual online/in-person summer academy with synchronous and asynchronous activities. Helped students understand material from a variety of STEM seminar speakers and do individual short projects focused on problem solving in various STEM areas.

Seattle, Washington, United States

- Aided in developing quarterly workshops on equity mindedness in the classroom with cross-campus partner organizations.- Developed a survey to understand where resources, support, and culture is lacking within the department so that following years agenda can begin with actionable items to build a more inclusive and equitable environment.

Richland/Kennewick/Pasco, Washington Area

Worked to develop highly accurate models to describe water's macroscopic properties, including various anomalies such as its density maximum, unusually high melting and boiling points, heat capacity, and heats of vaporization and sublimation. The underlying link that connects these properties is the interaction potential between molecules in a native liquid environment. Simulated clusters of water molecules of increasing size were used to mimic the local environment of water. After the optimization of the native liquid environment was completed, I worked to solve the vibrational problem to evaluate the shifts of OH covalent stretches to lower frequencies. I found that the shift was due to the influence of surrounding hydrogen bonds.

Spent approximately 5 hours per week assisting students taking general chemistry in understanding and applying concepts taught in the course and providing extra support in preparation for assessments.

Computational study on the effects of macromolecular crowding on the association of a two-protein system mediating an electron transfer central to photosynthesis. Developed and carried out a computational method to obtain bimolecular, diffusion-controlled rate constants under dilute conditions at a water viscosity, and an increased viscosity as well as crowded conditions on large systems. Utilized a novel program called MOIL to perform milestoning which breaks down the pathway of one protein diffusing to a second protein into discrete steps (milestones), increasing the accuracy and decreasing the computational time for large systems.

Greater Pittsburgh Area

Tested and modified the base material Texin (a thermoplastic polyurethane material), specifically in regards to moisture levels, to suit the purposes of the product to be made from the material as per a customer’s request.

Doctor Of Philosophy - Phd, Physical Chemistry

Bachelor Of Science - Bs, Chemistry

Activities and Societies: Alpha Chi Sigma, American Chemical Society, Habitat for Humanity- Magna Cum Laude - Honors thesis studying.