Jacqueline Fajardo

Chemistry & Biochemistry

Jacqueline Fajardo

Assistant Professor

Jfajardo@udel.edu

Biography

Jacqueline L. Fajardo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Delaware, where she leads innovative efforts in chemistry education reform and interdisciplinary curriculum design. She develops and teaches first-year Honors General Chemistry integrated in a coordinated and intentional alignment with Integrated Honors Introductory Biology, serving life science, health science, and biomedical engineering majors. Her courses engage students through active learning, authentic research experiences, and interdisciplinary problem-solving, bridging molecular principles of chemistry with systems-level perspectives in biology. She also teaches elementary biochemistry, emphasizing how molecular structure and reactivity underpin the complexity of biological function.

Dr. Fajardo additionally contributes to the Interdisciplinary Sciences Learning Laboratories (ISLL) Tutoring Center, which supports hundreds of STEM students each semester through inclusive academic programming, peer mentoring, and leadership development. Through the collective efforts of dedicated faculty, staff, and students over the past decade, ISLL has evolved into a vibrant hub for interdisciplinary teaching and mentoring. Dr. Fajardo has helped design inclusive programming and professional development opportunities that link undergraduates, graduate assistants, and faculty in shared support of STEM learning.

Before joining the University of Delaware, Dr. Fajardo’s bench research focused on protein structure elucidation and molecular biophysics. At Washington State University, she performed protein overexpression, purification, crystallization, and synchrotron X-ray diffraction, contributing to several high-resolution protein crystal structures, including the cytotoxic bacterial protein Colicin B (Mol. Microbiol., 2004) and lignan biosynthetic enzymes (J. Biol. Chem., 2003). Earlier, her work at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory explored protein adsorption and denaturation using HPLC and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, providing a foundation in analytical precision and structure–function relationships that continues to inform her approach to biochemical education.

At Delaware, Dr. Fajardo’s scholarly and curricular innovations have been recognized through multiple awards and nominations for excellence in teaching, including the College of Arts and Sciences Excellence in Teaching Award (2018) and the Honors College Excellence in Teaching Award (2025). Her educational research and leadership have been featured at national venues, including the National Institute for Scientific Teaching, where she co-presented “Comprehensive Integration of Introductory Biology and Chemistry Curricula in Foundational College Courses for Life Science Majors” (2025), and the American Chemical Society National Meeting, where she co-organized the Chemistry Education in Practice symposium (2025). She is also preparing to co-organize the 2026 Symposium on Research in Chemical Education, continuing her engagement in national conversations on innovative chemistry teaching. Beyond these activities, Dr. Fajardo contributes actively to the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Education, where she has either co-chaired or served on multiple General Chemistry Full-Year Exam development teams and serves as a reviewer for the Journal of Chemical Education.

Dr. Fajardo also plays an active role in faculty governance at the University of Delaware, serving as Chair of the Faculty Senate Rules Committee, Secretary of the University Faculty Senate, and an elected member of the Executive Committee. Through these roles, she collaborates with faculty and administrators to refine policies, uphold principles of shared governance, and foster communication across colleges and disciplines. Her work in this area reflects a longstanding commitment to building bridges between faculty expertise and institutional decision-making.

Across her teaching, scholarship, and service, Dr. Fajardo’s work reflects a sustained commitment to scientific teaching, inclusive pedagogy, and the integration of chemical and biological reasoning as complementary ways of understanding living systems. Her efforts exemplify the department’s mission to unite excellence in chemistry research and education through innovation, collaboration, and community.

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Current Research

My work centers on the CHEM103/104 General Chemistry series. The traditional version of these courses comprise of science and engineering students who do not have a major emphasis in chemistry or chemical engineering, yet require a strong foundation in chemistry on which to build upon. I strive to foster a continuous learning environment so that, through their experiences in lecture, laboratory, workshop and unscheduled time in between, our students are immersed in the study of chemistry.

This immersion requires careful implementation and utilization of numerous instructional and technological resources available here at UD. To access my students unscheduled time, all of my course lectures, both in-class and supplemental, are posted directly to our course site. Supplemental recorded lectures give me the freedom to spend our precious lecture time engaging in dialogue with the students, developing ideas, queries and furthering our collective insights. Methods of simple problem solving, such as techniques associated with dimensional analysis, are addressed through supplemental lectures that may be viewed by the students at their own convenience and applied during lecture.

My initial scientific experiences as an undergraduate researcher profoundly influenced and shaped my current view on the importance of undergraduate education. I was fascinated with protein structure and I wanted to understand how such complex beauty could have been achieved. I immersed myself in the study of protein structure using x-ray crystallography as a tool. A notable achievement was my solved structure of a cytotoxic protein from E. coli, Colicin B (55 kDa), which we discovered consisted of a 75 Å long helical linkage between two distinct N- and C-terminal regions. Using my skills in x-ray crystallography and protein structure, I migrated to the world of chemical education as a means to share my knowledge and discoveries with students just beginning their journey into science and chemistry. My dissertation research established the concept of scale transfer in biochemical education research, and through this research, I recognized that transfer between different contexts could also be applied to transfer between scales, and misconceptions that were previously undetected could be elucidated.

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Representative Publications

Wasacz, J., Fajardo, J. & Suits, J. (2006) Online collaborative learning in a science laboratory course: Student-generated inferences and misconceptions. In E. Pearson & P. Bohman (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications, pp. 1336-1343.

Hilsenbeck (Fajardo) JL, Park H, Chen G, Youn B, Postle K, Kang C. (2004) Crystal structure of the cytotoxic bacterial protein Colicin B at 2.5 A resolution. Mol Microbiol, Vol. 51, No. 3, pp. 711-720.

Park H, Hilsenbeck (Fajardo) JL, Kim HJ, Shuttleworth WA, Park YH, Evans JN, Kang C. (2004) Structural studies of Streptococcus pneumoniaeEPSP synthase in unliganded state, tetrahedral intermediate-bound state and S3P-GLP-bound state. Mol Microbiol. Vol. 51, No. 4, pp. 963-971.

Min T, Kasahara H, Bedgar DL, Youn B, Lawrence PK, Gang DR, Halls SC, Park H, Hilsenbeck (Fajardo) JL, Davin LB, Lewis NG, Kang C. (2003) Crystal structures of pinoresinol-lariciresinol and phenylcoumaran benzylic ether reductases and their relationship to isoflavone reductases. J Biol Chem. Vol. 278, No. 50, pp. 50714-50723.

Wright DB, Banks DD, Lohman JR, Hilsenbeck (Fajardo) JL, Gloss LM. (2002) The effect of salts on the activity and stability of Escherichia coli andHaloferax volcanii dihydrofolate reductases. J Mol Biol., Vol. 323,No. 2, pp. 327-344.

Goheen SC, Gibbins BM, Hilsenbeck (Fajardo) JL and Edwards JV. (2001) Retention, unfolding, and deformation of soluble proteins on solids inBioactive Fibers and Polymers, ed(s) Edwards JV and Vigo TL. Washington, D.C., Oxford University Press, pp. 20-34.

Goheen SC, Hilsenbeck (Fajardo) JL. (1998) High-performance ion-exchange chromatography and adsorption of plasma proteins. J Chromatogr A., Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 89-96. Erratum, 1998, J Chromatogr A Vol. 824, No. 1, p. 135.

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Selected Speaking Engagements

Use of animations as a tool to elicit mental models of undergraduate students enrolled in a GOB course [Invited Speaker] - American Chemical Society 239th National Meeting and Exposition. September 1, 2011, Denver, CO.

Crystal Structure of the cytotoxic bacterial protein Colicin B at 2.5 Å resolution [Invited Speaker] -Adams State College, February 4th, 2011, Alamosa, CO.

Identification of misconceptions held by high school general chemistry students within a POGIL-based learning environment - Biennial Conference on Chemical Education, August 2, 2010, Denton, TX.

Quantitative assessment of the conceptual development of high school general chemistry students within a POGIL-based learning environment, American Chemical Society 239th National Meeting and Exposition. March 24, 2010, San Francisco, CA.

Measuring knowledge transfer on three scales: near, intermediate, and high-resolution, in the undergraduate pre-allied health biochemistry classroom - American Chemical Society 237th National Meeting and Exposition - March 22‑26, 2009, Salt Lake City, UT.

Facilitation strategies of POGIL-based implementation in high school general chemistry classrooms, American Chemical Society 237th National Meeting and Exposition, March 22-26, 2009, Salt Lake City, UT.

Assessing the role of learning style preferences on knowledge transfer in a biochemistry course - American Chemical Society 235th National Meeting and Exposition, April 6-10, 2008, New Orleans, LA.

Assessing the role of learning style preferences on student diagrammatic and written explanations, [Invited Paper] - IUPAC World Chemistry Conference, August 5-11, 2007, Torino, Italy.

Assessing the role of learning style preferences on three different measures of learning – recall, conceptualization, and transfer, American Chemical Society 234thNational Meeting, August 19-23, 2007, Boston, MA.

Exploring the effectiveness of molecular visualization tools in the biochemistry classroom, Biennial Conference on Chemical Education, July 31-August 3, 2006, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

Crystal Structure of Colicin B. Outstanding Graduate Research Seminar, Physical Chemistry, Division (2003), Washington State University, Pullman, WA.

Cation-Pi Interactions in protein crystallography, Outstanding Graduate Research Seminar, Organic Chemistry Division (2002), Washington State University, Pullman, WA.

The behavior and chromatography of fibrinogen, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology; San Francisco, CA, May 16-20, 1999.

Protein adsorption and biomaterials, Surfaces in Biomaterials Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN (1998)

Protein adsorption onto solid surfaces, NORM ACS Regional Meeting, Pasco, WA (1997).

Measurement of tri-n-butyl phosphate in the vapor phase of Hanford tanks, Health of the Hanford Site Conference, Richland, WA, December 3, 1997.

High performance ion-exchange chromatography and adsorption of plasma proteins. 17th International Symposium on the Separation and Analysis of Proteins, Peptides, and Polynucleotides; Washington, D.C., October 26‑29, 1997.

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Selected Poster Presentations

Student’s use of an online animation to visualize heat-induced protein denaturation in a GOB classroom (Poster), Gordon Research Conference – Visualization, Bryant University, July 10-15, 2011 Smithfield, RI.

Reasoning capabilities and conceptual gain in POGIL high school chemistry (Poster), Gordon Research Conference – Chemical Education: Research and Practice, June 26-July 1, 2011, Davidson, NC.

Assessment strategies for POGIL-based implementation in high school general chemistry classrooms – (Poster) Gordon Conference Chemical education: Research and Practice, June 21-26, 2009, Colby College, Waterville, ME.