Many years ago, the students and friends of Harold R. Snyder established an endowment fund in his honor to support undergraduate students with an interest in organic chemistry.
We also have funds to support undergraduate students with an interest in chemical biology. This includes students who would like to pursue research in the areas of biosynthesis, biocatalysis, biomolecule function discovery, bioimaging, biomolecular engineering, and synthetic biology.
Each year, the Department of Chemistry uses these funds to host students from other institutions as Snyder Scholars at the University of Illinois. Snyder Scholars have the opportunity to work with our Illinois faculty for a 10-week period over the summer. The list of participating faculty is below.
The Snyder Scholar fellowship provides:
- $5,000 award for a ten-week stay in our department
- $750 for research expenses to the hosting laboratory
- Travel to/from Urbana, reimbursed as allowable per University of Illinois policy
- Student housing (pre-arranged and paid by our department)
Snyder Scholars must have completed two semesters of organic chemistry lecture and two chemistry-related laboratory courses by the time the fellowship begins. They should be committed to pursuing Ph.D. studies in organic chemistry or chemical biology. We strongly prefer nominations of juniors (i.e., those students with one full academic year remaining as an undergraduate), although truly exceptional sophomores may instead be nominated. Seniors will not be considered.
Only U.S. citizens and permanent residents will be considered for these fellowships. Only one nominee is allowed per department.
Snyder Scholars must be nominated and have a letter of recommendation submitted by their nominator. The nomination materials must be submitted by the deadline and must include the student's CV/resume, an unofficial transcript, and a personal statement of research interests. The personal research statement should include the names of three to five Illinois organic chemistry faculty who interest the student, along with a brief explanation of how working with these specific faculty will match the student's research interests in the context of their career goals. For Summer 2026, the 11 Illinois organic chemistry faculty who are hosting Snyder Scholars are Profs. Burke, Chan, Hergenrother, Isomura, Jun, Mehta, Mirica, Silverman, Strauss, van der Donk, and White. Faculty other than these 11 should not be named in the student's personal statement. Many of these 11 faculty have research that is substantially related to chemical biology as well as organic chemistry.
The 2026 Snyder Scholar nominations are due by the deadline of Friday, January 9, 2026 at 3 pm Central Time. The ten-week Snyder Scholar stay begins on Tuesday, May 26, 2026 and ends on Friday, July 31, 2026.
For more information on this program, please contact:
Administrative Questions
Kara Metcalf
Organic Chemistry/Chemical Biology Office
61 Roger Adams Laboratory
600 South Mathews Avenue
University of Illinois
Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: 217-244-0769
metclf@illinois.edu
Program Questions
Prof. Angad Mehta
Department of Chemistry
166 Roger Adams Laboratory
600 South Mathews Avenue
University of Illinois
Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: 217-300-9925
apm8@illinois.edu
Prof. Scott Silverman
Department of Chemistry
140 Roger Adams Laboratory
600 South Mathews Avenue
University of Illinois
Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: 217-244-4489
sks@illinois.edu