Dear CEE students, staff, faculty, and community members:

My name is Katya Cherukumilli and I’m an assistant professor in UW Human Centered Design and Engineering (HCDE) and director of the Safe Water Equity and Longevity Lab (SWELL). I have a small but important request: 

Can you please take 10 seconds and use this link to vote for our team (log in using your email, and click the 👍🏾 at the top)? 

Your vote could help us win funding from the Student Technology Fee to build UW’s first-ever “CHEMystery Lab”, which can freely be used by all UW campus members (more details on this below)! Proposals will be reviewed starting next week, and reviewers will prioritize applications with more endorsements (we currently have ~155 votes). 

Details: We propose to buy two portable X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) analyzers, which can be used to rapidly and easily characterize the elemental composition of solids and liquids in any setting. Example applications of XRF range from measurement of heavy metals in drinking water, food, soil, and consumer products to contactless, nondestructive characterization of paintings. Our goal is to increase access to free analytical chemistry tools on campus and enable users from all academic backgrounds to explore the invisible, atomic-scale world of materials.