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Impossible to put a price tag on solid education? Try $250,000. That’s the value of 10 extremely valuable and sensitive pieces of laboratory equipment that Chad Yaindl ’06 (Emmaus, Pa.) mastered this summer. His legacy will be a written protocol for both faculty and students on maintaining and using this specialized equipment.
Yaindl, a civil and environmental engineering major, started becoming the in-house “expert” on the sophisticated laboratory equipment as part of Lafayette’s distinctive EXCEL Scholars program, in which students collaborate with faculty on research while earning a stipend. Lafayette is a national leader in undergraduate research. Many of the 180 students who participate in EXCEL each year go on to publish papers in scholarly journals and/or present their research at conferences.
Under the supervision of Art Kney, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, Yaindl trained himself in the use of a number of pieces of analytical equipment for a new undergraduate environmental research laboratory.
“At first, some of the equipment seemed way over my head,” says Yaindl. “I found that I was learning new stuff every day. The EXCEL program challenges you to learn, to grow. Learning to operate the equipment has been an academically rigorous experience; I’ve learned a lot and made a lot of new friends.”
What impresses Yaindl is that his work is not theoretical, but practical.
“I have been trying to learn how to use a gas chromatography machine, for example,” he says. “It helps researchers to determine groundwater quality and levels of contamination. For example, to see if groundwater is contaminated with gasoline, oil or chemicals. This all ties in with Professor Kney’s work with studying groundwater in Warren County, N.J.”
“You can’t do anything unless you know how to operate the machines, and without the machines, we’re not able to try and preserve our environment,” says Yaindl, a member of Lafayette Environmental Awareness and Protection and graduate of Emmaus High School.
Kney regularly involves students in his research, co-authoring papers published in scientific journals and presented at academic conferences. He has played a leadership role in obtaining three grants in less than two years from the National Science Foundation, totaling more than $650,000. He also helped establish a monitoring program for the Bushkill Creek that is carried out by student volunteers.
“Professor Kney is also taking samples from the Bushkill Creek,” says Yaindl. “He is testing them for alkalinity and oxygen levels. He needs someone who can run the samples through the machines and make sure we get a correct reading. That’s where I step in. I learn to use the machines and then write up a protocol so others can learn how to use them.
“Chad is an amazing young guy,” says Kney. “He approached me last year as a freshman about learning to do laboratory work and starting coming in on his own in the spring. There was no compensation; he just wanted to take things on for himself. When we got this new equipment, I knew he was the young man for the job. He has a unique ambition.”
“His goal has been to have complete understanding of all 10 of the new pieces of equipment. We’re talking very complex, sophisticated pieces of equipment that many of us on the faculty have trouble mastering. He will develop an operational program for each piece of equipment (i.e., quick start guide, operational guidelines).
“I know that Chad has the natural ability, the technical skill and the hard drive to learn this equipment and pass on that knowledge to others,” says Kney.
After he learns to use all 10 pieces of equipment, Yaindl will write up a training manual that future students can turn to as they learn to operate the machines, explains Kney.
“Chad’s legacy will be taken up by students who come into the labs and can safely operate the machines thanks to his expertise. We’re talking a quarter of a million dollars & it’s an awesome responsibility this young man has taken on.”
In addition to the protocol, Yaindl will also help establish chemical, health, and safety data sheets, says Kney.
If things go as planned, Yaindl will continue to assist in the protocol for the laboratory equipment up until his graduation. He looks forward to working with Kney’s ongoing project on monitoring storm water runoff. This project, says Yaindl, “will use all the machines that I have been learning this summer. It’s where the practical and theory all come together.”
“Chad is one of those students,” says Kney, “that you look back on with pleasure and realize this is why you went into teaching. He’s that good.”
As a national leader in undergraduate research, Lafayette sends one of the largest contingents to the annual National Conference on Undergraduate Research each year. Over the past five years, more than 130 Lafayette students have presented results from their research with faculty mentors at the conference.