Dr Maria Vogt is Professor of Chemistry at Bloomfield College in New Jersey where she teaches lectures and runs labs in Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry. Having had a prior research career and publishing more than 45 papers, Dr Vogt now devotes her efforts to prepare students for the “real world” by exposing them to as many hands-on and instrumental skills as possible prior to graduation. She encourages the development of problem-solving skills. NMR spectra are used as “puzzles” through which the students are pushed to use their brain to figure out unknown samples in their practical classes.
Dr Vogt is enthusiastic about introducing practical hands-on NMR to her students “Analyzing an NMR spectrum is just plain fun! NMR is essential at many levels of chemistry. It is essential in graduate school and industries such as foods and pharmaceuticals. Providing a foundation in the analysis of simple samples by NMR at the undergraduate level will help prepare my students for the interpretation of the much more complex spectra of more complex molecules.”
Undergraduate chemistry major, Tytianna Drew, uses the Magritek Spinsolve benchtop NMR spectrometer in her organic chemistry classes. Her college laboratory experience has earned her a summer internship at global biopharmaceutical company, Celgene Corporation, headquartered in New Jersey.
In discussing her choice of the Spinsolve NMR spectrometer over other options Dr Vogt commented  “In recent years, however, I became aware of three or four such instruments becoming available. I looked into them but, quite frankly, was less than thrilled with their performance until Magritek came into the picture. Magritek’s Spinsolve is by far the easiest instrument to use. It is also extremely fast, with an excellent spectrum generated and printed out in a minute or two.  The software is intuitive…”
And  “…Generating and analyzing your own spectrum is a lot of fun. Most students really don’t like solving puzzles. However, I must say that they certainly enjoyed their experiences with the Spinsolve.”