Congratulations to Katherine Smart for receiving the National Institute of Justice Graduate Research Fellowship in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics for her project "Novel GLC-based Method for Identification of Positional Isomeric Fentanyls."

According to the NIJ website, the program "supports doctoral students engaged in research relevant to NIJ's criminal justice mission. The GRF program has two tracks, grouped by academic area of study: the Social and Behavioral Sciences program and the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) program." You can learn more about the fellowship here.

Research Abstract: The number of synthetic opioid-involved deaths has increased dramatically in recent years, more than 200% from 2000-2014. Profiling of these analogs is crucial in decreasing availability and accessibility to the general public. New gas chromatographic stationary phases will be investigated for the identification and quantification of fentanyl analogs in powdered drug samples. The research will also examine physiological response and the prediction of the distribution of various fentanyl analogs in the various body tissues.