University students pilot ACS-funded international mentorship program

Two students were selected last year to pilot an international exchange program between the American Chemical Society Brazil Chapter and ACS National University of Costa Rica (UNA) Student Chapter. Chemistry students Rebecca Bicalho, from Brazil, and Maricruz Monge, from Costa Rica, had the opportunity to work in laboratories at universities in each other’s country and gain experience and knowledge in areas of chemistry they weren’t used to working in. The program also included ongoing mentorship. “The main idea of this mentorship program is to develop and improve skills,” says Óscar Soto Corrales, a member of ACS’s UNA Student Chapter. “We wanted to give the students an international experience in another laboratory at another university so they could do research in a field that they could be interested in.” Monge was assigned to the Environmental Nanotechnology Laboratory at the Paulista State University in Sorocaba, Brazil, with Leonardo Fernandes Fraceto, chair of