This is a special post for me because it involves my two lives - one as a chemistry/science educator and the other as a photographer.

Being an adjunct professor gives me the ability to keep in touch with my science background while giving me the time to pursue my passion in photography - it's a pretty sweet deal and I am incredibly grateful. As with any teaching job, it is the students that make it so rewarding. One of the classes I teach is "Chemistry and Society". In short, it is a science class for non-science majors that have to fulfill a science requirement as part of their liberal arts education. As you can imagine I typically have less than thrilled students sitting in front of me on day 1 of class. (It's pretty much how I felt as a chemistry major sitting in my upper level theology class when I was at Villanova.)

Amber was one of those students. One time during office hours she said to me, "...it's just that I spend so much time studying for this class, but I'm never going to use this information."

Truth be told, that was a small dagger to my heart, but it gave me the motivation to be sure I was going to be relaying information that was relevant for students like Amber - a makeup artist, plus-size model, and communications major with the goal of working in public relations (PR). At the end of the semester I asked each student to write a short paper about a topic of their choice and researching the science involved in it. Amber chose to research the role of silicone in makeup.

Nearly 6 months after class ended I unexpectedly receive an email from Amber:

"Thought about some chemistry stuff the other day when we got some new makeup at my store! When looking at the ingredients a customer asked me why there was silicone in the primers and boy did I have an educated answer for her!"

I am not lying when I say I nearly cried reading this.

When talking about our interests I mentioned photography as one of mine and she asked if I could do some portraits for her sorority. So I spent a lovely afternoon with the ladies of Sigma Theta Psi at San Diego's famous Balboa Park for some portraits and good times!