Marya Lieberman decided to let the local community’s needs drive her scientific process. She found herself out of the lab and on the front lines of the opioid epidemic.
Your friendly neighborhood analytical chemist: If there is such a thing, Marya Lieberman embodies it. The 28-year veteran of Notre Dame’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry faculty invariably appears with a broad smile and a hair color that seems to emanate from her effervescent personality—sometimes heliotrope purple, sometimes neon blue.
You’ll spot Lieberman not just in the corridors of Stepan Chemistry Hall, where she leads a lab bustling with graduate students, but also around the city of South Bend, where she maintains an extensive list of community partners and field testing sites.