About

Kathryn L. Ryan grew up in Cape Carteret, North Carolina. When offered a scholarship to play soccer for the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, Katy found it hard to refuse. The opportunity to play college soccer with her twin sister, as well as the financial ease that came along with the cheap tuition, made UNCP the school for Katy. 

In May of 2020, Katy graduated with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. Katy was awarded the Chancellor’s Distinguished Scholarship. She also made the Chancellor’s List and Honor’s List multiple times throughout her college careers. During her senior year, she received the Scholar All-American Soccer Award. She also participated and held offices in extracurricular organizations, including Circle K, women’s soccer and the Student Athlete Advisory Committee. 

Coming into the honors community, Katy was surprised by the close interactions of the students with each other, as well as the professors. She was not expecting the community to be so tight knit. Throughout her time as a member in the Honors College, Katy found the service-learning opportunities many of her honors classes offered her to be the most rewarding. Katy believes all of the experiences that she encountered through the Maynor Honors College not only benefited her during college but will continue to help her thrive in post-grad endeavors. She credits her well-rounded resume to getting involved and taking advantage of all the opportunities made available to her. 

For her senior project, which was mentored by Dr. Paul Flowers, Katy developed a mass spectrology method for rapid quantification of caffeine in beverages. Being a typical college student, Katy noticed how many energy drinks she and her peers consumed on a normal basis. When she took a closer look at the nutritional facts on the back of the can, she realized how much caffeine they all were consuming at an alarming rate. Katy was then inspired to create a faster process to measure the amount of caffeine in beverages. Katy’s method will be used as reference or to help facilitate any undergraduate studies that involve measuring caffeine concentrations quickly and accurately.  

Katy will be attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s pharmacy program in the fall of 2020. Her ultimate goal is to obtain her doctorate degree. She is still unsure of what field in pharmacy she wants to pursue but will explore it at UNC. 

When asked if she would have any advice to provide to the future honors students, she emphasized sticking with the program. She encourages students that even when the program become stressful, the faculty are always available to help. 



Senior Project

"Rapid Determination of Caffeine in Beverages using Mass Spectrometry and an Atmospheric Solids Analysis Probe"

Mentor: Paul Flowers