The National Academy of Sciences has announced the selection of eighty-seven of the nation’s brightest young scientists from industry, academia, and government, including chemistry faculty member Mei Shen, to take part in the National Academy of Sciences’ U.S. and international Kavli Frontiers of Science symposia for 2025.
These three-day events bring together scientists who are 45 or younger and engaged in exceptional research in a variety of disciplines. A committee of NAS members selected the participants from among young researchers who have already made recognized contributions to science, including recipients of major fellowships and awards. Attendees at these symposia are designated Kavli Fellows.
Shen's current research interests interface between nanoscience, electrochemistry and neuroscience, specifically involve studying neurotransmission at nanobiological structures, such as single synaptic cleft. Shen joined the Illinois chemistry faculty in 2019. She received her Ph.D. from Professor Allen J. Bard (University of Texas at Austin) and did postdoctoral work with Professor Shigeru Amemiya (University of Pittsburgh).
In 2025, the National Academy of Sciences will hold two Kavli Frontiers of Science symposia that included the US national symposium and a trilateral symposium with Japan and Germany. The U.S. symposium will take place on March 6-8, 2025, at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering in Irvine, California. The meeting will cover a variety of topics in sessions focusing on batteries to power the world, obesity, quantum, reproductive justice, seeing the world through different lenses, from organisms to superorganisms: major transitions in biological complexity, who is space for? and wildfire management.