If, when he was a Maryville College undergraduate 30 years ago, Jon Peters ’96 had access to the sophisticated scientific instruments he recently helped bring to the College, his Senior Study might have turned out a little differently … but then again, he might not have learned nearly as much about the technology that ultimately helped shape his career.
Working alongside Chemistry Professor Emeritus Dr. Terry Bunde, Peters set out to explore whether different types of music could produce measurable changes in stress-related chemicals in the human body, combining his two majors, Music and Chemistry, in an ambitious research project that required both scientific curiosity and technical ingenuity. The equipment he used was functional, proven laboratory technology, but it belonged to an earlier generation of analytical instruments, one that required considerably more hands-on operation and offered fewer capabilities than modern systems.
The experiment didn’t yield the conclusions Peters originally anticipated, but assembling and operating the equipment gave him an unusually intimate understanding of how scientific instruments work, how their components interact and how technological advances can expand the possibilities of scientific discovery. Those lessons proved invaluable as he pursued a career in analytical instrumentation, eventually becoming director of marketing for Shimadzu Scientific Instruments.
“It was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot, but my premise and my conclusion both were completely erroneous!” Peters said with a laugh during a recent return to his alma mater. “If I’d had access to instruments like these, it would have made my senior thesis much more successful.”
Today, that experience has come full circle. Through Peters’ efforts, Shimadzu Scientific Instruments recently donated a collection of laboratory instruments to Maryville College with an estimated retail value of approximately $450,000, an extraordinary contribution that will expand hands-on learning and undergraduate research opportunities for students across the Division of Natural Sciences.
The donation includes high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) systems, two ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy instruments, a compact Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer, a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) system and an X-ray diffractometer, along with additional components that will enhance the College’s laboratory capabilities. Much of the equipment is already available for student use in Sutton Science Center, while the Alexander Institute for Conservation Leadership and the Sciences will eventually provide additional space and infrastructure to support the full collection, according to Associate Professor of Chemistry Dr. Nathan Duncan.
“The possibility of getting an XRD (X-ray diffractometer) was really exciting, because that would really allow us to offer Senior Studies in more areas than we currently can, but I was also very excited about the GC-MS and the HPLC components,” Duncan said. “Those instruments get the most use in our courses and Senior Studies and are often a bottleneck for getting work done. The new detectors (fluorescence and evaporative light scattering), in particular, will allow us to study analytes we currently can’t and will complement the systems we are planning to have in the Alexander Institute.”
For Peters, however, the significance of the gift extends far beyond its considerable monetary value.
“God, I can’t even put it into words,” he said during a return visit to campus for Homecoming 2026. “It’s really a thrill to just even be involved in being able to be part of something that’s giving back to the students here.”
Peters and his wife, Michele, revisited his old stomping grounds when he returned to campus on Thursday, Oct. 22, including the classrooms and laboratories of Sutton Science Center, where he developed his appreciation for chemistry alongside his love of music. According to Bunde, who retired in 2012, Peters was among a relatively small number of students who pursued degrees in both disciplines.
“I didn’t have very many students who were dual majors in music and chemistry,” Bunde recalled. “And he was an incredible musician, too. Still is.”
A talented classical pianist and bass player, Peters found that Maryville College’s liberal arts curriculum allowed him to pursue seemingly disparate interests without sacrificing the depth of either. Courses in philosophy, literature, ethics and other disciplines complemented his scientific training, allowing him to cultivate communication skills, creativity and an intellectual versatility that would become invaluable throughout his professional life.
“I feel like I came out of Maryville College with a very well-rounded background and skill set,” Peters said. “And because of that, I think it really set me at an advantage against other students who graduated from state schools and maybe had to focus almost entirely on their engineering degree or their history degree and didn’t have the broader picture.”
Just as important was the College’s emphasis on experiential education, particularly in its science laboratories, where students were encouraged not simply to learn the theories behind sophisticated instruments, but to develop a practical understanding of how those instruments worked. Under Bunde’s guidance, Peters discovered that scientific knowledge extended beyond the results an instrument could produce to the technology, engineering and problem-solving required to uncover those results in the first place.
That philosophy became central to his Senior Study, an ambitious attempt to investigate whether different types of music could produce measurable changes in stress-related chemicals in human saliva. Peters theorized that predictable, harmonically structured music might reduce stress responses, while more dissonant or unpredictable compositions could produce the opposite effect.
To test his hypothesis, he needed a high-performance liquid chromatography system capable of separating and measuring chemical compounds in his samples. Bunde had access to a collection of laboratory instruments and components that had been donated to the College, equipment that had represented sophisticated analytical technology when originally manufactured and remained valuable for teaching and research.
“He just basically showed me a room full of stuff and said, ‘Go for it,’” Peters recalled.
And so Peters went to work, assembling an HPLC system from available components, performing routine maintenance, making minor repairs and learning how its pumps, detectors and other parts operated together. The process required patience and ingenuity, but it also provided an education that went well beyond simply learning which buttons to press or how to interpret a finished result.
The instruments represented an earlier era of chromatography, when scientists had fewer automated tools at their disposal and often performed tasks manually that modern systems handle electronically. Peters’ equipment, for example, lacked a built-in degasser, requiring him to prepare the liquid used in the analysis through a manual process known as sparging. Its pump operated at a constant solvent composition, limiting his options for improving the separation of compounds, while the detector and data-recording technology offered less sensitivity and flexibility than contemporary instruments.
Perhaps the most striking difference was the way the system produced its results. Instead of the sophisticated software now used to interpret electronic signals, Peters worked with an integrator that printed chromatographic peaks onto thermal paper. Determining the size and significance of those peaks could involve measuring them with a ruler, cutting them out and weighing the paper, or scanning the printed results and counting pixels.
The technology worked, but extracting meaningful data demanded considerable knowledge of the instrument and the analytical process. And for Peters, that was part of what made the experience so valuable.
“Overall, nothing was ‘wrong’ with the old equipment, but innovations in technology development (by companies like Shimadzu) have improved our ability to separate and quantify analytes,” Peters explained in a follow-up email about his undergraduate research.
The distinction is an important one. Scientific instrumentation has evolved dramatically over the past several decades, with advances in detector sensitivity, separation techniques, automation and computerized data analysis allowing researchers to measure increasingly small concentrations of compounds with greater precision. The instruments Peters used in 1995 belonged to a generation that demanded more manual intervention and offered fewer analytical capabilities, but learning to work within those parameters gave him a deep understanding of the underlying science.
The experiment itself proved less conclusive than he had hoped. People’s physiological responses to music were considerably more complicated than his original hypothesis suggested, with individual preferences and experiences influencing reactions in ways he hadn’t anticipated. The limitations of the technology also made it difficult to obtain the precise measurements necessary to test his theory.
“It was a disaster,” Peters joked, although he’s quick to acknowledge the lasting value of the experience.
Bunde remembers the project with equal affection.
“We didn’t get any conclusive evidence, but we had fun doing it,” he said. “I tried to find something that was full of music and chemistry. So we did.”
What neither professor nor student could have known was that the process of assembling, operating and understanding that HPLC system would become one of the most consequential experiences of Peters’ education.
After graduating from Maryville College, Peters pursued additional studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, before beginning a career in the scientific instrumentation industry. He quickly discovered that the hands-on experience he gained in Sutton Science Center gave him an advantage over peers whose training had been more theoretical.
“I had actually put an HPLC system together,” he said. “That process gave me a really deep understanding of the technology. And so when I went into jobs where that technology was a focus, I could speak about it much more intelligently, and I could actually do the work right out of the gate compared to somebody who had only studied it in theory.”
Peters eventually moved into scientific instrumentation product and business development, including a position with Teledyne CETAC Technologies, where Shimadzu was among his customers. That relationship introduced him to the company’s scientists and operations, including a visit to Shimadzu Corporation’s facilities in Kyoto, Japan.
In 2017, he joined Shimadzu Scientific Instruments as a product manager in elemental spectroscopy, relocating to Maryland, where the company’s North American subsidiary is headquartered. After spending 14 months with Thermo Fisher Scientific beginning in 2022, he returned to Shimadzu in 2023 as senior marketing manager and was promoted to head of marketing in 2025. Throughout that progression, he drew on the same combination of technical expertise, communication skills and creative problem-solving abilities that his Maryville College education helped develop.
His career has also given him a firsthand appreciation for how the scientific instrumentation industry continually advances analytical technology, developing systems that are easier to operate, more automated and capable of increasingly sensitive and precise measurements. Those improvements don’t diminish the value of earlier instruments, Peters explained; rather, they demonstrate how scientific innovation builds upon previous generations of technology to make new kinds of research possible.
And the experience of learning to operate those earlier systems remains valuable in its own right. As someone who now participates in hiring chemists, Peters said the qualities he seeks in prospective employees reflect the education he received.
“Have you actually put your hands on the instrument? Can you tell me about it? What if this breaks?” he said, describing the questions he poses during interviews. “You can’t get that from theory. You have to put your hands on the instrument and experience it.”
And throughout his career, Peters has never forgotten the professor whose demanding classes and inventive laboratory instruction helped him develop those abilities. Bunde’s organic chemistry course, he recalled, required an entirely new level of discipline. The professor would fill three chalkboards with chemical reaction mechanisms before class began, then work through them at a pace that forced students to develop new approaches to studying and problem-solving.
“It was the first class I took where I recognized that I was going to have to work,” Peters said. “I was going to have to develop life skills to accommodate that kind of methodical, regular, dedicated effort toward a long-term goal in order to be successful, not just in this class but in life.”
Equally influential was Bunde’s insistence that chemistry was more than memorization. Equations were important, but understanding what they represented and how they could advance scientific knowledge was essential, Peters added.
“He wanted you to be creative. He wanted you to get good at problem-solving,” Peters said. “A lot of the grading system depended on how well you could create an elegant solution to an analytical problem using the vocabulary of organic chemistry. That creativity and encouraging that type of creative problem-solving has really benefited me in life.”
For Bunde, those lessons were simply part of the responsibility of teaching. He recalled receiving phone calls from Peters early in his career, when his former student was working with instruments similar to those he had learned to assemble and operate as an undergraduate.
“He would call me up and say, ‘Thank you,’” Bunde recalled. “I’d say, ‘For what, Jon?’ And he’d say, ‘For knowing what’s on the inside of those (metal) boxes, because I’d watch you repair them and take them apart and put them back together!’”
Bunde paused, reflecting on a former student whose achievements have continued to make him proud.
“There are students who really impress you, and you never forget them,” he said. “And he’s one of them.”
The circumstances that brought nearly half a million dollars’ worth of scientific equipment to Maryville College began with an effort to reorganize Shimadzu Scientific Instruments’ facilities in Maryland.
As part of a facilities and inventory initiative, the company identified laboratory instruments that could benefit educational institutions and other organizations through donation. Unlike the equipment Peters had worked with three decades earlier, much of the donated collection represents considerably newer generations of technology, including instruments that were new in their original packaging just two or three years ago. The X-ray diffractometer had been used as a laboratory demonstration system.
For Peters, Maryville College immediately came to mind. Shimadzu’s corporate philosophy of “contributing to society through science and technology,” along with its commitment to building long-term relationships with academic institutions, made the College a natural destination for the instruments. Having benefited personally from access to analytical instrumentation as an undergraduate, Peters understood the extraordinary educational opportunities such a gift could provide.
He reached out to his alma mater, eventually connecting with Duncan, who quickly recognized the potential of the offer.
“After a few conversations with Jon, I realized this was a pretty big deal,” Duncan said.
The donated instruments will allow more students to work simultaneously, support a wider range of experiments and introduce capabilities that were previously unavailable or difficult to access. Some will support research through the College’s Little River water quality survey, an ongoing study of Blount County’s primary waterway, including planned investigations into the presence of antibiotics and sunscreen-related compounds in its waters and tributaries. Others may contribute to pharmaceutical analysis, environmental studies and interdisciplinary projects involving faculty and students across the natural sciences.
Duncan also anticipates using some of the equipment to establish a fermentation analysis laboratory at the College’s Downtown Center, potentially supporting research involving hops grown on campus and the chemical compounds that influence flavor and aroma. The implications extend beyond chemistry alone.
“Virtually every member of the Natural Sciences division could take advantage in some way,” Duncan said.
The instruments represent a substantial expansion of the College’s scientific resources and include modern analytical systems that will complement existing laboratory capabilities and help faculty members introduce students to the kinds of instrumentation used throughout the scientific workforce. For Duncan, one of the most exciting aspects of the donation is the opportunity it creates for students to gain direct experience with sophisticated scientific technology, rather than merely studying its applications in textbooks or observing others operate it.
“We aren’t a research-only institution where the best new stuff is only touched by a handful of people or limited to graduate-level research,” Duncan said. “Our undergrads will use this equipment.”
That distinction, he emphasized, is fundamental to the College’s approach to science education.
“The modern scientific workforce requires instrumentation,” Duncan said. “What we’re doing is building a program where we’re transforming students through instrumentation.”
The timing of the donation is especially meaningful as Maryville College advances plans for the Alexander Institute, a major initiative intended to expand scientific education, research and engagement throughout Southern Appalachia. Duncan sees the equipment as part of a broader effort to ensure that the Institute’s future facilities are matched by the technology and educational opportunities necessary to fulfill the institution’s promise.
“A new building is nice and needed, but it’s equally important that we have the best tools possible for the people who will be teaching and learning in there,” he said.
His ambitions extend beyond current undergraduates to include opportunities for regional high school students, transfer students and working professionals seeking additional scientific training. He envisions a Maryville College where students encounter sophisticated instrumentation early in their academic careers, where collaborative research addresses challenges facing East Tennessee, and where the College helps prepare the next generation of scientists and technical professionals for careers in an increasingly technology-driven economy.
For Duncan, the connection between those ambitions and Peters’ generosity is deeply personal. Like Bunde before him, he believes that understanding scientific instrumentation is an essential component of a first-class chemistry education, and hearing Peters describe the impact of his former professor’s mentorship reaffirmed his own commitment to providing students with meaningful hands-on learning experiences.
The donated equipment also represents an opportunity to connect the practical knowledge that shaped Peters’ education with the capabilities of contemporary scientific technology. Where Peters once learned to interpret chromatographic results on printed paper, today’s students will be able to explore sophisticated computerized analytical systems, gaining experience with the methods and instruments that increasingly define modern scientific research.
That progression reflects not only the evolution of technology, but the enduring value of the educational philosophy that guided Peters’ undergraduate experience: Students learn science most effectively when they have opportunities to practice it.
“To see how alumni think of us, even 30 years later, to try to provide for our current and future students in this way speaks more about what an MC education really means than anything I could ever say,” Duncan said.
When Peters and his wife returned to College Hill for Homecoming 2026, he found himself caught between the familiarity of the campus he remembered and the excitement of seeing how much had changed.
The staircases and laboratories of Sutton Science Center brought back memories of long hours spent studying, experimenting and learning from professors who challenged him to think beyond the obvious. At the same time, the College’s continuing growth and plans for the Alexander Institute offered a glimpse of the opportunities awaiting future generations.
“It’s a combination of nostalgia and seeing how the College has grown and progressed and built new things and is adding on and doing really exciting new work,” he said. “So it’s inspiring and very nostalgic at the same time.”
For Peters, the connection to Maryville College runs even deeper than his own undergraduate experience. His mother, the late Mary Guerin Peters ’59, was also a Scot, making his return to College Hill a homecoming in more ways than one. Nearly seven decades after she graduated, and 30 years after he followed in her footsteps, the Peters family’s relationship with the College continues — this time through a gift that will help shape the educational experiences of generations yet to come.
Michele, visiting East Tennessee for the first time, was struck by the beauty of the campus and the warmth of the relationships her husband had maintained with former classmates and professors.
“He still speaks fondly of his professors,” she said.
Among the memories the couple hoped to revisit was a mountain property owned by Music Professor Emeritus Dr. Robert Bonham, a log cabin essentially built around a 9-foot Steinway piano, Peters said — a connection to a faculty member and a musical passion that enriched his life outside of science, and a reminder of how the relationships between students and faculty at Maryville College often extend far beyond the classroom.
For Bunde, who returned to Sutton Science Center to see his former student and the donated instruments, the occasion offered an opportunity to reflect on how far both Peters and the College’s science program had come.
“I mean, I’m sitting here in awe,” Bunde said. “I knew that he donated all of these instruments. I did not know exactly what instruments would be included in the donation.”
It was a moment that connected past and future: A professor who taught his students to understand scientific instruments from the inside out, a former student whose career was shaped by those hands-on experiences, and a new generation of students who will benefit from the opportunities their shared efforts have made possible.
Thirty years ago, Peters’ Senior Study may not have produced the scientific conclusions he hoped it would, but it taught him something far more enduring: how to solve problems, how to think creatively, how to persevere through uncertainty and how to transform knowledge into practical experience. The instruments he worked with represented the technology of an earlier generation, but the lessons they taught him remain as relevant as ever.
Today, as the scientific instrumentation industry continues to develop more powerful and sophisticated tools, Peters is helping ensure that Maryville College students have opportunities to explore those advances for themselves. And through the gift he helped arrange, the education that once opened doors for him will continue opening doors for others.
For Peters, the chance to give back to the institution that helped shape his life is a reward that no monetary value can adequately express.
“I’m the one that’s grateful,” he said. “I’m the one that’s honored by this.”
