Davis-Bahcall Scholar excels at Cambridge and Caltech

Imagine it’s 1978. You are a Styrofoam coffee cup at a family picnic at Roughlock Falls in Spearfish Canyon, near Lead, SD. A child decides to set you afloat over the waterfall. You bob near the surface for a short time, before tumbling over the edge to be smashed into small pieces on the rocks below. You begin the long journey downstream, towards the ocean. 

Now imagine it’s 2025. You are the same coffee cup—and small parts of you are still strewn across those rocks, from the pristine waters of Little Spearfish Creek all the way to the sediments of Lake Oahe on the Missouri River. You haven’t yet reached the Gulf Coast, but rest assured, someday you will.

This is because polystyrene, sometimes trademarked as Styrofoam, lasts a long, long time in the environment. It can take up to 500 years to break down.

The challenge of cleaning up billions of bits of polystyrene strewn into the environment over the decades is one of the things that drew Grace Davis to study chemistry.

In 2024, Davis landed a prestigious summer research internship at Cambridge University, working under Dr. Bart de Nijs, who leads the research group Physics for Sustainable Chemistry. Her project explored using gold nanoparticles to help break down polystyrene so it can be recycled.

“The goal of my project was to try to find a way to use lower-energy light to photocatalytically degrade polystyrene,” Davis said.

Her trip to Cambridge was made possible through a competitive application process she undertook as a freshman at the California Institute of Technology. That effort earned her a spot in the Physics 11 course and covered the expenses for her internship in the United Kingdom.

The research Davis undertook as a sophomore chemistry major was anything but sophomoric. Picking up where a postdoctoral scholar had left off, her work required a deep understanding of subjects ranging from chemistry to physics, materials science, and cutting-edge nanotechnology.

The project aligned with a passion for making a difference in the world—a passion ignited during her time as a Davis-Bahcall Scholar in 2023 and fueled by her studies at Caltech.

“I wanted to do something that could address a problem I saw in front of me,” Davis said. “The Davis-Bahcall program and my time at Caltech taught me there are so many opportunities to use the power of science to do so many things. I decided I wanted to use that power to make an impact on the world today.”

Davis grew up on her family’s farm near Elkton, South Dakota. Her love of STEM began as a child. “I have always seen infinite possibilities in the world around me, from the farthest star to the smallest particle,” she wrote in an essay that accompanied her 2023 application to become a Davis-Bahcall Scholar at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF).

Davis spent five weeks in the summer of 2023 participating in the Davis-Bahcall Scholar Program now hosted by the Institute for Underground Science at SURF. The once-in-a-lifetime, all-expenses-paid opportunity connects science-curious students with peers and mentors while exploring the modern world of STEM research. The program also aims to demystify STEM careers by exposing students to what professionals do every day.

“I cannot overstate the impact of the Davis-Bahcall Scholar Program on my life,” Davis said. “Growing up in rural South Dakota, I had little exposure to scientific research. I had no idea what it was like. There weren’t a lot of people I knew in the career field I really wanted to go into.”

Davis said her time in the 2023 program illuminated future possibilities and gave her the confidence to achieve her dreams.

“To have the opportunity and the funding to visit these labs on the frontier of science, where cutting-edge research was being done, and to actually talk to the people doing it, was transformational for me,” she said. “I gained the confidence to leave my entire life in South Dakota and go out to California to study.”

That confidence is part of the message Davis wants to share with those considering applying for the 2025 Davis-Bahcall Scholar Program. The application deadline is Friday, Jan. 17, 2025—apply here.

“Don’t put any limits on what you want to do,” Davis said. “Don’t be afraid to apply for these things, and don’t be scared that you’re not going to be enough. You can do anything. The sky is the limit, especially in this era. The biggest universities are really starting to realize the untapped potential of people from underrepresented backgrounds. Being from South Dakota is almost by definition an underrepresented background, right? Because historically, we haven’t had the opportunities we have today.”

Davis is living proof that students from small-town South Dakota can become top-tier researchers tackling the toughest problems of the future. Her work this past summer is yielding promising results in the ongoing effort to find new ways to break down polystyrene.

“One of the new postdocs in the group is continuing to work on my project because I did get some exciting preliminary results,” Davis said.

She remains in contact with the research team, and with any luck, the work she contributed to could someday help clean up all those broken polystyrene coffee cups, containers, and packing materials slowly making their way to the sea.

The Davis-Bahcall Scholar Program is hosted by the Institute for Underground Science at SURF. Major sponsors who make the program possible include First PREMIER Bank, Black Hills State University, the South Dakota Space Grant Consortium, and the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority. Those interested in supporting the program can learn more here. An article on First PREMIER Bank and its ongoing commitment to the program will be shared in the “Deep Thoughts” newsletter soon.