About

The Mission

The Research Her was created with us in mind. The goals of this platform are to:

  • Help us make better health and lifestyle choices
  • Divulge research that has been done to solve everyday problems
  • Highlight women of color doing research in all fields
  • Emphasize the need for more studies focusing on underrepresented groups
  • Promote and encourage the pursuit of research that has yet to be executed

Elissia

Elissia Franklin, Ph.D. is a passionate chemist dedicated to uncovering science that everyone should know about. There is a gap in the amount of research that is being done for and by people of color versus those who are more represented. Elissia decided to champion these topics and continue the much-needed dialogue. The Research Her is a podcast and platform devoted to communicating relatable and reliable topics relevant to communities of color.

A native of the Southside of Chicago, Elissia grew up understanding that there are systematic disadvantages when you are black and a woman. As she has matriculated in the science community, she discovered just how deep into higher education and other professional environments the disadvantages run. With her passion for science, she is not afraid to blaze a trail and represent in a field where we need people to see themselves reflected. She is passionate about teaching anything she knows to anyone who wants to learn and believes that knowledge should be accessible to all.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was the start of Elissia’s professional career. She graduated with honors from the Department of Chemistry with a Bachelor of Science. Throughout her 4 years in college, she worked to improve resilience in the Black and Latinx communities through volunteering, opting into having difficult conversations about systemic oppression.

After receiving her B. S., her love for science continued at Purdue University, where she studied analytical chemistry. Her Ph.D. research focused on lipid analysis using mass spectrometry. She has presented her work on multiple platforms such as the Gordon Research Conference, National Organization for the Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers and American Society for Mass Spectrometry. Her work has also been published in the Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry and Analytical & Bioanalytical Chemistry. 

Elissia had the honor of working on dissertation research at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. Her research projects focused on developing an analytical technique for characterizing the molecular structure of glycerol-based lipids in human plasma. On November 4th, 2019, She successfully defended her thesis titled “Incorporation of the Paternò–Büchi reaction into mass spectrometry-based systems for lipid structural characterization.”

Currently, Elissia is a postdoctoral researcher at Purdue University where she is expanding the use of gas-phase ion/ion reactions for lipid analysis using mass spectrometry.