CBC Hispanic Heritage Alumni Spotlight: Danielle Barrientes, Chemistry, Class of 2018

CBC continues to celebrate Hispanic Heritage! Join us as we highlight our students and alumni while they share their stories! Read about Danielle Barrientes, Chemistry BS, Class of 2018.

"I graduated with my B.S. in Chemistry in 2018, and I began my new career at the University of Arizona as a chemist in the Arizona Laboratory for Emerging Contaminants. My initial position was as a chemistry technician, running and maintaining a variety of instruments for inorganic analyses for clientele from numerous departments across campus and those from universities and companies outside of Arizona. I found myself quite daunted at first, as this was my first job, and I hadn’t had the chance to develop my professional confidence yet. However, I knew that I could be confident in my lab and analytical skills learned from my undergraduate experience, and it became a fun process of believing in my abilities and being excited to build upon them in a high-throughput facility.

Over the years, my position grew with my passion for analytical chemistry, and I was able to shift my focus from routine inorganic analyses to the challenging world of organic mass spectrometry. At first, my focus was on mastering the bench chemistry required for this complex, high sensitivity instrument. I prepared complicated standard solutions with some 40 analytes, as well as developed advanced preparation methods for a variety of sample types. I extracted whole insects to analyze a toxin they secreted, sewage sludge for PFAS, and contaminated water from across the country for a variety of different chemicals. My first big project was creating an LC-MS/MS method for the analysis of 25 PFAS compounds deemed of high concern from the EPA. PFAS analysis has been a growing request in our lab over the past few years, so this method would be very relevant and exciting to the university’s many clients. Now a routine analysis in our lab and hundreds of samples analyzed, I am developing the method for 40 PFAS analytes, as the EPA list of relevant compounds has grown.

I have felt very fortunate to find my career here at the U of A, as I have been able to learn and grow in a way that would have been limited in an industry setting. Six years later, I am a supervisor in our facility and a specialist in the instrumentation I was intimidated by at my start. We have had many CBC undergraduates work in our lab over the years, and it has been wonderful to pass on my growing knowledge to them to be used in their upcoming laboratory coursework and the careers they find themselves in the future."