Kenneth Stout has been selected as one of the Chemistry Department’s Fall 2015 Undergraduates of the Quarter. Kenneth was born in San Diego, California but recently moved to Tualatin, Oregon with his family after his father accepted a job at Intel. He attended Mount Carmel High School and chose Oregon State University for his higher education. His decision to attend OSU was partially based on cost, but he was also swayed by the fact that he had family in Washington and Oregon and that OSU accepted his high school AP credits.
Kenneth is currently a junior, dual majoring in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. He finds both of these complementary subjects to be interesting and enjoys the academic challenges they pose.
His favorite class at OSU has been CH 471 – Advanced Organic Chemistry with Dr. Chris Beaudry. It was this class that made him get involved with research and he’s been working in Dr. Beaudry’s lab ever since. He says, “taking this class got me really interested in Organic Chemistry. It’s motivated me to take more Organic classes.” Dr. Beaudry stated, “Kenneth is the best classroom student I’ve ever seen, period. He was in the top few students in O-Chem as a freshman: a class of 125+ sophomores. He took my advanced organic class (CH471) and was the top student in a class of 10 “superachievers”. He’s doing independent work in our laboratory investigating a reaction of a carbon-centered radical that we invented. He’s basically running his own show in the lab like a 2nd or 3rd year graduate student.”
Outside academics, Kenneth says he’s been inundated with opportunities to get involved with campus life. He says his favorite memories are working for a year as a Resident Assistant and spending time in the campus craft center. He says he appreciates that everything at OSU is so accessible.
Upon graduation, Kenneth plans on attending Graduate School and studying more Organic Chemistry. He’s considering post graduate work in either academia or a biotech company, but he says, “it’s early and I’m keeping my options open.”