#chempack Series: Baker Research Group
Up next on our #chempack feature series is the Baker Research Group!
Dr. Erin Baker is an associate professor of analytical chemistry who joined WolfPack in 2018 (Wahoo!!). She is a farm girl from Montana who loves all creatures including snakes, cows, peacocks, possums, and dogs. A couple of fun facts are that in high school she finished 10th in the state in the 100-meter dash and her girls’ basketball team won the state championship 3 times.
The Baker Lab currently has one postdoctoral researcher (Dr. James Dodds), and 8 graduates (Karen Butler, Melanie Odenkirk, Allison Stewart, Kaylie Kirkwood, Makayla Foster, Michael Doyle, Jack Ryan, and Rebecca Beres), and 5 undergraduate students.
The Baker Group’s overall goal is to gain an in-depth understanding of how chemical exposure affects human health by measuring changes in metabolites, lipids and proteins, and the xenobiotics themselves. Some of their exciting new directions include measuring molecular disruptions in alligators and sea lions to evaluate environmental contamination.
Karen BUTLER is an amazingly talented analytical student who loves teaching, instrumental platforms, and method development. Karen’s research has spanned from the evaluation of protein post-translational modifications to the rapid detection of opioids. Karen is headed to the FDA in October 2021 to use her skills to optimize allergen analyses. Karen will be defending her Ph.D. thesis on Sept 17th, 2021.
Nancy Abdelrahman is a senior undergraduate RESEARCHER who will be graduating in December 2021. While Nancy did not know it before starting undergraduate research, she has a great aptitude and passion for computational evaluations. Thus, over the last two years, she has utilized KNIME and R to explore how lipid molecular descriptors affect normal and reverse-phase liquid chromatography separations. This work is allowing her to optimize retention time predictions and provide more confident lipid identifications. Nancy has a great interest in cosmetic chemistry and is currently exploring job options.
One of the Baker Research Group students wearing goggles and a lab coat working in the lab 
Professor Erin Baker standing next to one of her students who is carrying a baby kangaroo 
Two members of the Baker Research Group working in the lab 
The Baker Research Group three small dogs wearing NC State shirts
#ChemPack features are a series of tweets that aims at highlighting a research group of our department to display the ongoing rich and diverse research. #ChemPack features are prepared by the department’s communication committee – stay on the lookout for our next one! If you’d like your lab to be featured, please reach out to Nada Taylor at netaylo3@ncsu.edu.
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