During the spring semester of 2013, sophomore Christina Geldert, a biochemistry and molecular biology major at California Lutheran University, submitted her draft of an equipment lab cleaner called WareWash into a contest with the Scientific Equipment and Furniture Association. Her submission won her second place and a $3,000 scholarship for the next school year.

Geldert said that she came up with the idea of WareWash while she was joking around in professor Patricia Fausset’s general chemistry lab and thought, “What if the drawers in the lab were dishwashers?”

“I was thinking it would be cool if we just put the equipment in it every week and we come back and it’s all clean,” Geldert said.

WareWash is a design for both storing and effectively cleaning lab supplies. It is designed as a drawer-style system for both sanitation and storage.

“I assume WareWash could save at least an hour to two hours a day on lab cleaning,” said junior chemistry departmental assistant Jacob Burman. “I work with many vials daily…and I store those and I have to clean them myself.”

Because of WareWash’s multi-functionality and controlled amounts of cleaning agents, it is not only effective, but also eco-friendly, according to Geldert.

“All technologies should be sustainable and with the modern technology we have now-a-days, all of them should be optimized to be as sustainable and eco-friendly as possible,” Geldert said.

“I was looking for scholarships and I came across one that said design a piece of laboratory equipment that would benefit the lab environment and I just went for it. This is a sign,” said Geldert on her applying for a third-party scholarship.

Third-party scholarship programs are available through the financial aid office. This allows students to find contests and programs where they can express how their creativity and intelligence can be pushed for the greater good.

“It showed me that even a little idea like that is effective,” Geldert said. “It shows that any little idea you can dream up, someone can see it and see that it has potential.”

Geldert is one student out of many who has won an independent scholarship. From her experience, she shared that it was not a difficult task; all it took was a bit of motivation.

“If you see something that is wrong, why not think of an idea to fix it and you might get noticed.”

Jordan Oram
Staff Writer
Published Nov. 20, 2013