Amanda Spiewak moved to UW-Madison with the Weix Research Group in 2017, from the University of Rochester. She was part of an outreach group there and was looking for a way to continue sharing her love of chemistry with others in the community, which led her to Prof. Shakhashiri’s course Chemistry 350: Communicating Science to the Public via Demonstrations. Her interest in science was first sparked in high school, by her AP chemistry teacher.

Amanda is from Charlton, MA, and earned her undergraduate degree at the University of New Haven. With the Weix Group, she worked on new methodology to make various Carbon-Carbon and Carbon-hetero atom bonds (Nitrogen, Oxygen, Sulfur). Her research involved the understanding of directed C-H activation reactions. She dreams of becoming a teaching professor who runs an outreach program at an R1 research institution. Amanda finished her PhD in July 2020. Afterward, she joined the UW-La Crosse Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry as an associate lecturer before returning to the UW-Madison Department of Chemistry as an Organic Chemistry Lecturer.