Student Profile - Natalie Talbott
June 2009

"The UHON Program is a lot like a family. The administrators are almost like your parents in their concern for your wellbeing, and your classmates are some of the best friends you will ever have. You can have the best of both worlds because you have a tight-knit group of friends and the academic variety of an entire university. UTC has much to offer, as does the city of Chattanooga--the opportunities are limitless. Having a solid foundation like UHON helps tremendously in getting the most out of college."

Natalie is a senior majoring in humanities and biochemistry, with a minor in music performance.

Natalie loves to be seen in her lab coat and goggles! And she's put a lot of miles on them in the last three years: in addition to her major courses in biochem, she was a teaching assistant for organic chemistry lab in 2008, then spent that summer in a lab in Köln, Germany on an internship through DAAD Rise (a German organization that brings American students to work with research groups in German universities), studying organometallic chemistry. This summer she is working on a research grant with Dr. Greg Grant on ligand effects on platinum and palladium 1,4,7-trithiacyclononane. This year she will be working on her senior honors thesis entitled Ligand Effects on Titanium Aggregations Analyzed by Diffusion-order NMR Spectroscopy (DOSY). Her outstanding work thus far as a science student has won her the Dr. Charles Robert Thomas Pre-Medicine Scholarship for 2009-2010.

She's definitely not a woman with a one-track mind, however. Natalie makes connections among disparate disciplines, and pursues them all with equal enthusiasm and commitment. A serious Latin scholar, Natalie has taken almost every course in Latin offered at UTC and is frequently called upon as a Latin tutor.

She is a passionate devotee of the clarinet and has participated in the Chattanooga Clarinet Choir since 2007 and in UTC's Clarinet Ensemble and Woodwind Trio. Her love for classical music stood her in good stead when she researched American avant garde composer, Donald James Erb as a UHON Student Research Assistant to Dr. Jonathan McNair, U.C. Foundation Associate Professor of Music Theory. But it doesn't have to be classical music to get her excited--being a part of UHON's winning AllSing team and performing such disparate numbers as "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," "Don't Worry Be Happy" and "I Will Survive" was a highlight of her 2008-2009 year (and the whole UHON Program's!).

Even with her intensive scientific and musical pursuits, Natalie still finds time for a wide range of campus and community activities. She has been elected to the UHON Council for the past two years, serving as secretary in her sophomore year and treasurer in her junior year and as manager of UHON's indoor soccer intramural team in spring 2007 and 2009. She will return to the UHON Council as its president for 2009-2010.

She also has been active in UTC's Student Government Association, serving on the Freshman Senate in 2006-2007, then on the SGA Athletics and Academic Committees and as Liaison to the Faculty Senate and District 5 Chair of SGA. And naturally, she's involved with the Pre-Med Society, serving as secretary for the last two years.

In her remaining "spare time," Natalie is a regular volunteer in the Memorial Hospital Emergency Room.