Ashby Research Group

Welcome to the Ashby Group webpage!

The Ashby Group at Mount Holyoke College focuses on developing high-throughput screening methods for analyzing environmental and biological questions of interest. Learn more about the research conducted by the group here, or learn more about the members of the research group here.

Interested in doing research at MHC? Members of the Berry Lab have created a website that discusses the process of learning more about research opportunities and reaching out to faculty. Take a look at the Joining A Lab website, and feel free to reach out to me if you have questions!

Interested in doing research in the Ashby lab? Send an email to Jon: jashby[at]mtholyoke.edu. As part of your email, please include your class year, major (actual or intended), and why you are interested in doing research. If you have specific interest in one of the projects, feel free to share that as well!


The Mount Holyoke Department of Chemistry and Program in Biochemistry are committed to creating a fair and equitable environment to ensure the success of all students to come through our classes. As part of this, we have created an Anti-Racism website, which includes information on the efforts that we are undertaking to create an equitable and respectful learning and research culture.

Ashby Lab News:

  • (December 2022, January 2023) Marion Abeja received Academic All-District Honors from the College Sports Communicators, as well as being named a Division III Volleyball All-American, for her outstanding work on the court and in the classroom. Great work!

  • (September 2022) Marion Abeja received the Pfizer Poster Presentation Award (Analytical Chemistry Division) at the 2022 NOBCChE Annual Meeting. Congrats to Marion!

  • (May 2022) Congrats to Maria Monterroso on graduating! Thanks for creating a foundation of work that the current group of students have been able to expand on.

  • (May 2021) Large wave of graduations! Best of luck to Christina, Gianna, Kuzie, Peaches and Sophia on their future careers!

  • (June 2020) The Ashby lab was awarded the Undergraduate Analytical Research Program mini-grant from the Society of Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh to support summer student research related to our small-molecule aptamer research.

  • (May 2020) Congrats to Donglu on graduating! She also received the ACS Undergraduate Award in Analytical Chemistry. Best of luck moving forward!

  • (April 2020) Jon was awarded a teaching mini-grant (Pittsburgh Conference Memorial National Conference Grant) for the purchase of water quality instrumentation to be used in the analytical chemistry and environmental science courses at Mount Holyoke.