Dr. Katheryn Penrod

Biography

Katheryn Penrod serves as an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Pennsylvania State University. She also holds the position of Assistant Laboratory Director for Physical Chemistry. Her professional interests emphasize pedagogical approaches that enhance student engagement in physical chemistry courses. With a strong background in computational quantum chemistry, Dr. Penrod's research work has primarily focused on curriculum development aimed at improving engagement in physical chemistry classes. She adopts various methodologies including the incorporation of computational and theoretical chemistry approaches into physical chemistry experiments. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, she has been involved in significant research projects, which include developing reactive force fields for investigating aqueous peroxide radical chemistry, and benchmarking density functional theory methods. Dr. Penrod has received multiple awards for her teaching and research contributions, and has published several notable papers in the field of computational chemistry, including works on force fields and molecular dynamics. Her academic qualifications include a B.S. in Chemistry from York College of Pennsylvania, an M.S. in Chemistry from Penn State, and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Pennsylvania State University.

Research Interests

Experience

Awards