Silvia Ronco is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of South Dakota (USD). She received both her BS degree in Chemistry (1981) and her Ph.D. degree in Inorganic Chemistry (1986) from the National University of La Plata (Argentina).  After completing postdoctoral work at the Notre Dame Radiation Laboratory and Clemson University, she joined the faculty at USD in 1992. Her research interests involve the synthesis and study of the photochemical and photophysical properties of transition metal complexes with applications in solar energy conversion, and the design of luminescence probes. During the 1995-1996 academic year, she was a Program Manager for the Photochemical and Radiation Sciences Program at the DOE Chemical Sciences Division.  She has conducted research with over 25 students at USD and has obtained funding from PRF, NSF-EPSCoR and NCUR/Lancy. She publishes regularly with undergraduate co-authors and her students present their work at national and regional ACS meetings, NCUR and the USD undergraduate research conference (IdeaFest). She is committed to undergraduate research at many different levels and currently supervises 5 students in her laboratory during the academic year and the ten-week summer program. She is particularly interested in supporting and encouraging undergraduate research across the curriculum, and in developing different ways to better integrate research and scholarly activities into undergraduate education. She has served as the USD Undergraduate Research Council Chair since the Council was founded in the fall of 1998. As Council Chair, she was able to institutionalize undergraduate research at USD and started new research programs throughout campus. She is currently the Project Director for an interdisciplinary program based on the Lewis and Clark expedition and environmental aspects along the Missouri River, which was funded by NCUR/Lancy. This program brings together the research work of ten students from nine different departments.