Education
Ph.D. Organic Chemistry, 2003, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK
B.A. Chemistry and English, 1998, Greenville College, Greenville, IL
Biography
Lisa Crow has a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Oklahoma-Norman (2003), where she was the recipient of the J. J. Zuckerman Award in Inorganic/Organometallic Chemistry and the University of Oklahoma Graduate College Alumni Fellowship. She majored in chemistry and English as an undergraduate at Greenville College in Greenville, IL, where she was the recipient of the English Department Senior Citation and the Snyder Science Scholarship. Dr. Crow’s initial interest in teaching chemistry was affirmed through years of working as a chemistry peer tutor and chemistry laboratory teaching assistant in undergraduate and graduate school. As an undergraduate student, she first participated in chemistry research in an National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates (NSF-REU) in 1997 at Northwestern University Materials Research Center in Evanston, IL. Following her Ph.D. defense, she was awarded a South African government National Research Foundation Fellowship grant for a postdoctoral research work in the Organic Chemistry Division at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Immediately before beginning her teaching career at SNU, she worked for two years as a biochemistry postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Kansas.
Dr. Crow is very interested in helping students experience scientific research work. She was given the SNU Faculty Scholarship Support Award to work with two undergraduate students (Chris Schafer, Ph.D.; Andrew Cox, M.D.-Ph.D.) on a synthetic organic chemistry project in her first semester, and since then she has directly worked with many SNU students on research. In summer 2013, she received the Oklahoma EPSCoR Faculty Research Opportunity Award to work with SNU chemistry graduate Dr. Jimmie Weaver at Oklahoma State University and two SNU chemistry students (now pharmacists) on visible light photocatalysis. Dr. Crow truly enjoys working with SNU student laboratory assistants, peer tutors, and student researchers and hopes that they enjoy and learn from the work too. She encourages and recommends SNU students to apply for and pursue summer research experiences (REU, SURE, SURF) with stipends funded by the NSF, NIH, DOE, NASA and other funding agencies. Dr. Crow is especially thankful for the generous funding support of SNU student researchers in the sciences by the SNU science alumni organization known as Catalysts.
Dr. Crow has a strong interest in helping students pursue professions in sciences and in medicine. She grew up on the east coast of South Africa in three different hospital communities, where her father served as a medical doctor and missionary, and went to college in Illinois, where her grandfather owned a medical practice. Since arriving at SNU in 2007, she has served on the SNU Pre-Health Committee advising students pursuing admission to medical school, physician associate school, dental school, veterinary school, pharmacy school, and other medical professional degree programs.
Organic chemistry lecture involves drawing a lot of chemical structures, so it should be no surprise that Dr. Crow enjoys making art pieces from paints, pastels, chalks, and pencils. Organic chemistry lab involves a lot of sensory smells, fancy glassware, and equipment, so — no surprise — she also enjoys being in the kitchen cooking South African curries. As a former English major, she still enjoys writing, mostly poetry and hymns, especially using imagery and vocabulary from organic chemistry.
Hobbies and Fun Fact: painting, drawing, writing poetry, and cooking