Collin Muniz was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, home of The Crimson Tide, but quickly moved to LA, then on to Oregon where he attended Beaverton High School. His sophomore year at Beaverton High, he took his first Chemistry class. He fondly remembers his instructor, Patrick Cripey, performing an acid-based reaction in which he dissolved a penny and decided then and there, that Chemistry was pure magic; a type of magic that he wanted to explore further.
When it came time to apply to colleges, Collin applied to many and did his due diligence in visiting each one. He said it was an easy decision to choose OSU. Upon matriculation, he was originally a Chemical Engineering major, but quickly discovered there wasn’t enough chemistry in that major, so switched to a dual degree in Chemistry and Physics. He says his first professor was also his favorite professor, Dr. May Nyman. He reports greatly enjoying the teaching methods and classes of Dr.’s Daniel Myles and Paul Blakemore as well, but Dr. Nyman was the one who really gave him his start. Shortly after starting her class, Collin went to her office hours and “prodded” her for information about her science. He said, at first, she was slow to open up, not wanting to confuse him, but his excitement for the subject was infectious and she was soon writing structures on the white board and discussing her research with him. Several weeks later, she contacted him and offered him an undergraduate research position with her lab. An opportunity he jumped on with great enthusiasm and has never looked back.
Collin plans on attending graduate school in the future, whichever graduate school, he says, will help him pursue his dreams to the best of his ability. After that, he wants to find work in a National Lab. “I want to work in the sort of environment where there’s a lot of pressure to get your final product and where you need to be very innovative to accomplish that,” Collin stated. In his free time, he enjoys playing soccer and studying, a fact which he says, makes him boring. We here in the Chemistry Department think that makes him a wonderful new addition to our Undergraduates of the Quarter.
