Prof. Poppiti joined the Chemistry Department in 2018 as a General Chemistry lab instructor. He earned his PhD in Chemistry at The George Washington University and later became a Certified Health Physicist. After a career in chemistry with the Department of Energy, Prof. Poppiti embarked on his second career as a lab instructor.
He has a continuing interest in using microcontrollers (a single chip computer) for chemical or other measurements. Last year, he worked with computer science students on their Capstone project to build an Ultraviolet Dosimeter. The dosimeter keeps track of a person’s UV exposure using a microcontroller to measure the UV, track exposure, and warn the user if their exposure exceeded recommended limits.
Prof. Poppiti has created several innovative home-grown tools to facilitate work in the labs, including a spectrometer, and thermocouples to replace mercury thermometers previously used by students to measure the melting points of chemicals. For more information about the thermocouples developed by Prof. Poppiti in collaboration with Prof. Kuhar, take a look at the article in this newsletter on “Innovations in the Lab”.
