Illinois chemistry alumna Sara Skrabalak has won the 2015 Baekeland Award given by the New Jersey section of the American Chemical Society. The Leo Hendrik Baekeland Award is given biennially to a US-based chemist under forty years of age, for outstanding accomplishments in pure or applied chemistry. As part of the award, a symposium in her honor is being held in New Jersey later this year.

She is presently Associate Professor at Indiana University. Skrabalak was previously honored by being chosen as a Cottrell Scholar, Sloan Fellow and Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. Most recently, she was awarded the 2014 ACS Award in Pure Chemistry.

Professor Kenneth Suslick was her University Illinois research advisor. She received the T. S. Piper Thesis Research Award for her dissertation titled: Porous Materials Prepared by Ultrasonic Spray Pyrolysis.