Dr. Maricel Demesa
Faculty-in-Residence - Kokernot Hall Senior Lecturer, Chemistry and Biochemistry
FIR since Fall 2021
Dr. Maricel Demesa is a senior lecturer in the Chemistry and Biochemistry department at Baylor University. Having served at Baylor since 2009, she teaches introductory and general chemistry for science and non-science majors. She earned her Ph.D. from University of Connecticut in Chemistry and both a M.S. in Biochemistry and B.S. in Chemistry from University of the Philippines, Los Baños. Born and raised in the Philippines, Dr. Demesa was actively involved in outreach activities that prepared high school teachers for instruction in chemistry, biology, physics, and mathematics courses. After coming to the United States to work on her PhD at UCONN, she also served as a student leader in the International Christian Fellowship, ministering to other graduate students.
Dr. Demesa is a polymer chemist with more than twenty five years of teaching experience in various fields of chemistry at the university level. Her broad research and industrial experience is in polymer analysis and polymer characterization, the isolation, purification and characterization of proteins, and water pollution load assessment. Dr. Demesa has co-authored a student solutions manual for a general chemistry textbook used in various universities in the U.S. and in other countries. She has also served as a youth minister leader for her church, and in 2017, served as a faculty leader for a BU sponsored medical mission trip to the Dominican Republic. Dr. Demesa also serves as a faculty advisor to CURE BU, a Baylor service organization.
Joining Dr. Demesa in this Faculty-in-Residence role will be her husband, Fernadel. The couple’s only child, Kirsten, graduated from Baylor in 2016 and currently works as a cardiac nurse at Ascension Providence Hospital in Waco. The Demesa’s have experienced living on campus before when they lived in the former faculty housing near Allbritton House, where they regularly hosted Dr. Demesa’s U1000/BU1000 students and hosted international students during Christmastime. In thinking of her new role as the Kokernot FIR, Dr. Demesa says, “I am looking forward to the opportunity of engaging and interacting with the freshmen women as a co-resident in the Kokernot community. The first-year experience is crucial to their success, and I am excited that the FIR position provides an avenue for me and my family to serve, to listen, and to bless these freshmen, as they navigate through life, finding and discovering their calling and purpose.”