Alison J. Draper, Ph.D.
Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Science
Alison J. Draper is the Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Science and a Lecturer in Environmental Science at Trinity College (Hartford, CT). As Director of the Science Center, Dr. Draper has responsibilities to the entire science division, including natural and physical science, mathematics and engineering. In this position, she writes external grants to support science education, she directs the Supplemental Instruction program, a peer-led study program designed to improve retention in introductory science courses, and she coordinates functions of the division, such as national fellowship advising, an annual research symposium and summer research programs. Additionally, she directs the Interdisciplinary Science Program, an honors program for first-year students who are interested in science. She teaches the first-year seminar for this program and advises all the student participants.
Dr. Draper began her education at Clark University (Worcester, MA) where she completed a B.A. with two majors, receiving high honors in Chemistry and highest honors in Environment, Technology and Society. She then completed a Ph.D. in Toxicology at the University of Kansas Medical Center in 1996, and undertook postdoctoral training at the University of California at Davis from 1996-99. While serving as a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Draper taught organic chemistry part-time at Sacramento City College. Prior to moving to Trinity, she served as an Assistant Professor in the Chemistry Department at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
Dr. Draper’s teaching interests are in the area of environmental chemistry and toxicology, although she has taught organic chemistry, pharmacology and non-majors science courses on drugs of abuse and poisonous plants and animals as well. Her research background is also highly varied. As a graduate student, she worked on drug metabolism by cytochrome P450 enzymes, specifically developing in vitro tests to predict drug interactions. As a postdoctoral fellow, she studied the same enzymes, but with a focus on their endogenous roles, especially related to allergy and inflammation. However, Dr. Draper’s early research was focused on human exposures to environmental toxins, and she has now returned to environmental research. Currently, Dr. Draper’s research is focused on the environmental impact of car tire wear particles. Airborne automobile tire particles and leachate are expected to have adverse effects in the environment. Over two billion stockpiled scrap tires leach into the water supply, and automobile tire loss of 90 mg/km contributes to road dust and respirable particles. Because most of the particles released into the environment are washed into waterways with rainstorms and snowmelt, Dr Draper is studying the effects of chemicals leached from tire particles on aquatic organisms. Related to this work, Dr. Draper is active in the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry and regularly brings undergraduate research associates to present at Society meetings.
Dr. Draper has also been active in science education research, and is a member of the National Science Teachers Association. For early work designing an introductory course in environmental chemistry, Dr. Draper received the 2002 Ohaus Award for Innovation in College Science Teaching. Additionally, she has published the results of her work on incorporating community learning into courses on environmental chemistry in the Journal of Chemical Education. Her current interests in science education center on course-related collaborative learning environments.
Finally, Dr. Draper is passionate about service learning, and in her spare time, works with a health clinic in Nueva Vida, Nicaragua, near Managua, frequently leading brigades of student volunteers to work on basic construction, digging latrines and organizing the clinic.