Learning Undefeated’s STEM Spotlight series features young professionals from diverse backgrounds who are working to make a difference in science, business, medicine, engineering, and technology fields. Each short video includes a profile of the job role and information about how they came to be interested in STEM.

Formulation Chemist
DAP Products

Kyle Wilson has an undergraduate degree in Forensic Chemistry and a masters degree in Forensic Osteology. He currently works at DAP Products, headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, as a formulation chemist making home repair products. Kyle makes new products and tests DAP’s existing products against competitor brands. As a member of the Adhesives and Repair Team, Kyle works with repair products such as wood fillers and spackle along with different types of glues.

TRANSCRIPT

Hi, my name is Kyle, I’m a chemist at DAP for the adhesives and repair team.

Here at DAP products, we make caulks and sealants, adhesives, and we make repair products for all your home improvement needs. I got into chemistry as a kid because I like to bake. There’s actually a lot of chemistry and a lot of chemical reactions happening. Chemistry is in everything. You have a liquid, you heat it up and it becomes a solid and becomes something new, it’s very exciting for me.

My favorite part of my job is testing products and seeing how they work and then seeing what I can do to make it better. Today I’m going to show you our DAP rapid fuse which is a superglue. Glues you use at school, like glue sticks, markets, pencils, the chemist has to create those sorts of things. Superglues cure really quickly, set really fast, and have a very strong bond. It’s been about 30 seconds and the two steel pieces are holding together.

This is our impact tester, where we understand the strength of our superglue bond. This instrument is going to tell me the energy that’s required to break that bond and the higher energy that is required to break that bond the stronger the glue is.

Chemistry might be interesting to you if you like to cook, you like to mix things together, if you want to understand what something is made out of. I think Chemistry may be a great job for you.