Professor Catherine J. Murphy has received the American Chemical Society’s National Award in Inorganic Chemistry for 2020.

Of the 76 recipients of ACS National Awards given in 2020, 26 were women, and five of those national awards went to women for the first time, including Murphy, who is also the first woman to serve as head of the Department of Chemistry. She assumed that role on June 1. She is also the Larry R. Faulkner Endowed Chair in Chemistry, associate director of the Materials Research Lab, an affiliate in Materials Science & Engineering, and an affiliate of the Micro and Nanotechnology Lab.

The Murphy lab pursues a diverse range of projects, but the primary goal of research is to develop inorganic nanomaterials for biological and energy-related applications and to understand the chemical interactions of these nanomaterials with their surroundings.