Carolyn Burnley has been an active American Chemical Society (ACS) volunteer for more than 15 years at all levels of the society including local section, division, regional, and national. Carolyn served in the GHS Chair succession from 2007-2009 and has served as Councilor since 2009. She continued to create and publish the monthly newsletter until 2016. She has chaired or served on virtually every GHS subcommittee including Awards, Senior Chemists, Technician Affairs, and Community Affairs, and has served as National Chemistry Week Coordinator numerous times. Carolyn has organized many GHS and Southwest Regional events including award banquets, summer socials, science cafes, and our GHS 100th Anniversary Gala.
However, the single, largest contribution and legacy that Carolyn has provided is for Project Seed. Carolyn became the GHS Project Seed Coordinator in 2008 and has been serving in this role ever since. Carolyn is passionate about providing opportunities to gain exposure to science for underrepresented minority students. She started the program from scratch with no student mentors and very few high school teacher contacts. She reached out to her network and was able to get a small program together that first year. Since that time, she has grown the program to accommodate up to 20 interns per year. Over her 11 years as Project Seed Coordinator, she has provided summer research opportunities to >100 interns, including four Project Seed scholarship recipients and one Project Seed Scholar. It is a testament to her that she has had 20 mentors who have served with her for more than 5 years and in 2019 alone was able to recruit five new mentors to the program who have already expressed interest in returning next year. In honor of 15 years of ACS volunteering and another successful year of Project Seed, Carolyn is our volunteer spotlight this month!
