| Baylor > Environmental Science > Student Spotlights > Bowen Du |
Last spring, the environmental science Ph.D. candidate traveled to New Orleans to attend the Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals, where he presented a poster on the effects of feedstock-pretreatment chemistry combinations on inhibitory degradation products produced during biomass pretreatment. “Attending this symposium helped familiarize me with the progress of biotechnology development on alternative fuels for gasoline,” Bowen said. “It also gave me an opportunity to communicate with students and researchers from other institutions and companies.”
In addition to the opportunities provided by generously funded travel awards program, he believes that another benefit of the environmental science program at Baylor is its interdisciplinary approach. “The TIEEES interdisciplinary program is very novel and it gives me a solid background to either pursue a job in the industry or to do further academic research in my field,” Bowen said. The Institute for Ecology, Earth, and Environmental Sciences allows people of different science specializations to collaborate in an attempt to ultimately understand the earth, its natural resources and our stewardship of it.
All of this is made possible through an administration and faculty that he finds to be supportive, generous and open-minded. “Faculty at Baylor not only provide the time in the labs or field trips, but they allow students to think and do whatever their passions lead independently,” he says.
Studying has brought Bowen a long way from home, but he believes that he has found a home away from home. “People here in the department, Baylor, and Waco are very kind and accessible,” he says. “The atmosphere of living and studying here makes you less homesick, which is great for people who come to study here from foreign countries.”
He plans to continue pursuing his research and degree and is open to what he might pursue afterward. “I plan to look for a position in chemical analysis, probably for a research institute or company,” he said.
