Dr. Susan Verberne-Sutton
Biography
Dr. Susan Verberne-Sutton earned her bachelors of science degree in chemistry from Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana in 2000. She then was awarded her master’s degree in chemistry with an emphasis in inorganic chemistry from the University of California, Davis in 2004 where she also completed a semester-long internship with a start-up electronics company, Kovio, Inc., in Sunnyvale, California. Verberne-Sutton then taught general chemistry courses at Southeastern Louisiana University before moving to Nashville, Tennessee. She then worked as an analytical chemist for Environmental Science, Inc. in Mount Juliet, Tennessee where she operated ICP-OES instruments for ultra-low detection of trace metals. She then became an instructor of chemistry and undergraduate laboratory coordinator at Tennessee State University where she coordinated all undergraduate teaching laboratories and wrote new laboratory manuals with web enhancement for general chemistry classes in addition to teaching general chemistry courses. Verberne-Sutton was then asked to join the Division of Research and Sponsored Programs at TSU where she purchased, installed and trained researchers on $2M+ of analytical equipment in the Nanoscience and Biotechnology Core Facility. While in this role, she held several short courses on the instrumentation and team-taught a virtual course, Introduction to Nanotechnology, with CNMS at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Upon deciding to complete her PhD, she joined the Garno research group at Louisiana State University in 2012. Dr. Verberne-Sutton’s research focused on the development of a new sample stage for photocurrent measurements using scanning probe microscopy. Dr. Verberne-Sutton joined the Department of Chemistry at Vanderbilt in August of 2014 as a Senior Lecturer and teaches Forensics Chemistry, Introduction to Analytical Chemistry and General Chemistry where she focuses on curriculum development, especially metacognition enhancement for students in upper-division courses.