When NETL researcher Angela Goodman, Ph.D., appeared as a featured speaker this spring at a distinguished symposium sponsored by the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) New York Section, she shared key technical knowledge about geochemical interactions in the energy industry, helped honor her former graduate school advisor, and made history by participating ACS’s first all-female technical presentation panel.

The event was the ACS William H. Nichols Distinguished Symposium in White Plains, New York, and honored Nichols medal awardee Vicki Grassian, Ph.D., for her work on chemistry and its impacts on the environment. She is only the third woman to win the medal recognition since 1903. The Nichols Medal Award is a gold medal presented to a chemical scientist for original research. It was first awarded in 1903. The award ceremony has evolved into a distinguished symposium and a medal award banquet.

Grassian was Goodman’s graduate school advisor at the University of Iowa and is currently a distinguished professor at the University of California, San Diego in the Departments of Nano Engineering, Chemistry and Biochemistry and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Grassian invited Goodman to be one of only three speakers on the program.

Goodman’s talk addressed the symposium’s theme of interfacial and multiphase chemistry by focusing on pore-scale changes in shale after reaction with carbon dioxide (CO₂) and fluids. 

“It was an honor to be part of the all-female speaker panel – a first for this distinguished symposium – and to serve as a role model for up and coming young students exploring various degrees in chemistry,” Goodman said after the event.

At NETL, Goodman’s research has helped increase the understanding of geochemical interactions between CO₂, fluids and shale.

“It is becoming increasingly important to expand our knowledge about these interactions in relation to carbon storage in hydraulically fractured shale formations, use of CO₂ as a fracturing agent and for enhanced hydrocarbon recovery in shales,” Goodman said. “In this work, we use spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and surface area and pore size analysis to characterize the reactions that occur between CO₂, fluids and shale. It’s fascinating and important work.”

Goodman said she was deeply honored to be a part of the symposium that helped honor her mentor, address the work being done at NETL as a way of inspiring young people to become interested in pursuing careers in science and enabled her to interact with colleagues and chemistry students from throughout the nation.