{"id":88160,"date":"2025-12-09T14:50:40","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T19:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/?p=88160"},"modified":"2026-02-06T17:28:55","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T22:28:55","slug":"chemunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/chemunity\/","title":{"rendered":"ChemUnity"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Grace Sferraza (CAS`26, COM`26)<\/h6>\n
\"Holly
Holly McAnlis, chemistry Phd Student<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2024, then-third-year chemistry PhD student Holly McAnlis noticed a problem: graduate life was so demanding that students had little time to connect. \u201cPeople are in their bubbles,\u201d McAnlis said. \u201cYou\u2019re slammed with teaching, working, and research\u2014it\u2019s hard to foster those connections.\u201d<\/p>\n

So McAnlis teamed up with Chemistry Department Chair Sean Elliott<\/a> to survey graduate students. The overwhelming response: for more opportunities for building community.<\/p>\n

\"Holly
ChemUnity “Burritos and Bingo” event in April 2024.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That led to the creation of ChemUnity, a student organization that partners with the department to host social events beyond the usual fall barbecue and winter party. Their first event was “Burritos and Chemistry BINGO,” held in Spring 2024.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then Senior chemistry lecturer Alexis Courtney, an avid runner, proposed a new experiment: a running team. The hypothesis was simple: bringing together people from across the department\u2014graduate students, undergraduates, faculty, staff, and even alumni\u2014for a shared experience outside the lab.<\/p>\n

The result was Team BU Chemistry: \u201cRunning Reactions,\u201d which debuted at the Fall Classic 5K in Cambridge on Oct. 5. The team won a trophy for the largest team at the race. Over 50 graduate and undergraduate students, along with some alumni and faculty, gathered on a sunny fall day to run, walk, jog and chat with their fellow chemists.<\/p>\n

\"ChemUnity\"
ChemUnity running club, \u201cRunning Reactions,\u201d debuted at the Fall Classic 5K in Cambridge on Oct. 5.\u00a0 Over 50 graduate and undergraduate students, along with some alumni and faculty, gathered on a sunny fall day to run, walk, jog and chat with their fellow chemists. The team won a trophy for the largest team at the race.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe reason why I reached out to ChemUnity was because I wanted to get as many people involved as possible,\u201d said Courtney. \u201cIt wasn’t just like one group of people from chemistry, because sometimes that can happen, just faculty or just grad students, but it was a great mix of all different grad years and faculty and staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

The success of the 5K has sparked excitement for more experiments. ChemUnity is cooking up some new events in the near future, including a day at the MFA and BU Pub night for graduate students. The next event is a Friendsgiving potluck on Nov. 21.<\/p>\n

\"\"
ChemUnity board members (left to right) Lucas Clemens, Meroline Bazile, Anand Sahu, Matt Vince, Holly McAnlis (not pictured: Takumi Hawes)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cPeople should come to a lot of events,\u201d said McAnlis, now a fourth-year chemistry PhD student. \u201cYou’re going to relate to a lot of other people who are also going on this graduate student journey that you are on as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ChemUnity is bringing BU chemists together beyond the lab for social events, including a popular running group. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20868,"featured_media":88164,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88160"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20868"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88160"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89095,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88160\/revisions\/89095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}