Name: Mary Hochberg

Hometown: Greenville, NC

Major: Chemistry and philosophy with a concentration in applied mathematics

Notable UD Memory: Getting to know the chemistry faculty on a first-name basis

Achievements: 2022 American Chemical Society Dallas/Fort Worth Section Student Scholarship Awardee; 2022 American Chemical Society Organic Division Undergraduate Awardee; presented at several conferences, including the American Chemical Society Southwest Regional Conference in Austin; National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) certification recipient in health care ethics; NCBC Publications Fellow.

Future Plans: This summer, interning at Micron Technology in Boise, Idaho.

Mary Hochberg, BA and BS ’23, had never intended to double major in chemistry and philosophy. In fact, she had never taken a philosophy class before coming to UD. This changed the spring semester of her freshman year when she registered for Philosophy and the Ethical Life with adjunct instructor Mario Delucchi, Ph.D. candidate, and Philosophy of Being with professor Chad Engelland, Ph.D. She fell in love with the subject unexpectedly and decided to pursue it as a major.

“I realized that if I wanted a career in science, I wouldn’t be able to devote as much time and energy into the great ideas,” she said. “I wanted to take as much as I could out of UD’s philosophy classes.”

Hochberg credits the complementarity of both majors for making her a “better scientist in the ways that [she is] critically thinking, asking questions and going about seeking the answers.”

“Scientists like to proclaim all this great objectivity, but what does that really mean? What is the knowledge that we’re gaining in the scientific setting valuable for?” Hochberg said. “Philosophy has helped me to better approach those questions and apply them to my understanding of chemistry.”