This is something I never thought I’d have been able to do in my career, never mind in college. Coming to BSU, it’s been an amazing opportunity.
When Shannon McLaughlin, ’26, transferred to BSU as a junior last year, she wasn’t sure how much she could achieve with so little time left in her college career -- or what opportunities the university had in store for her.
She certainly never imagined she’d end up traveling with her research mentor, Dr. Ryan Hannagan, to use a specialized x-ray machine at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, a federally funded research center that Stanford University operates in Menlo Park, California, about 35 miles south of San Francisco.
“This is something I never thought I’d have been able to do in my career, never mind in college,” said Shannon, a chemistry major with a professional chemistry concentration. “Coming to BSU, it’s been an amazing opportunity.”
It began when the Braintree resident asked to assist Hannagan with his research exploring ways to make industrial chemical processes more environmentally conscious. Before they knew it, they were California-bound with BSU supporting Shannon’s participation through a Bartlett Travel Grant. Hannagan and Shannon used a powerful x-ray machine called a synchrotron to study the inner workings of an electrolyzer, a device that uses electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Hydrogen is widely used in industry, including fertilizer production, but most of it is still produced from fossil fuels in a process that generates emits amounts of significant carbon dioxide. Hannagan is developing an alternative method that uses only water and renewable energy, drastically cutting emissions that drive human-caused global warming.
“I think about how we can take current processes and revise them in a way that’s more sustainable,” said Hannagan, an assistant professor of chemical sciences. “I try to design the materials that make those transformations possible.”
In his first year teaching at BSU, Hannagan is eager to involve motivated students like Shannon in his research.
“I want to pass on that knowledge to the next generation,” Hannagan said.
Joining Hannagan and an interdisciplinary team of scientists in California gave Shannon new insights into how to troubleshoot problems. She also worked directly with specialized equipment and played an important role in data analysis that improved her computational skills.
With this professional experience under her belt, Shannon aspires to land a job in research and eventually earn a PhD. No matter where she ends up, she is motivated to use her skills to make a difference in society.
“My goal in life is to help people,” she said.
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