The innovative research efforts of two Illinois Chemistry faculty members — Jeffrey Moore and Benjamin Snyder — were highlighted during Founders Week at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Moore, Stanley O. Ikenberry Research Professor, and Research Professor of Chemistry, was recognized, along with Nancy Sottos, with the inaugural Discovery-to-Impact Award, recognizing a University of Illinois research group demonstrating exceptional commitment to translating research discoveries into the public sphere. And Snyder was recognized with an Emerging Innovator Award, recognizing faculty members who submitted an innovation report to OTM for the first time during the preceding year.
In partnership with Entrepreneurship@Illinois, the Office of Technology Management (OTM) has introduced these new awards at Founders Week 2026. Gerald Wilson, the university’s director of entrepreneurship, says “Our faculty innovators are among the most important drivers of Illinois’ entrepreneurial ecosystem. Their discoveries create opportunities for new technologies, companies, and solutions to important problems. We are proud to recognize both the promise of emerging innovators and the extraordinary accomplishments of faculty who have made research translation a sustained part of their work.”
The Discovery-to-Impact Award recognizes a University of Illinois research group demonstrating exceptional commitment to translating research discoveries into real-world impact. The award honors sustained engagement in innovation and commercialization, including invention disclosures, patent activity, industry engagement, licensing, startup formation, and/or other efforts that advance promising research beyond the laboratory.
The 2026 honorees, Dr. Nancy Sottos and Dr. Jeffrey Moore, have submitted a combined 112 invention reports, including 41 in which they were joint inventors. This body of research has resulted in a combined 55 issued U.S. patents, multiple licenses, and startups including Rapicure Solutions.
In addition to their productive independent research, the Sottos and Moore groups’ collaborative research into autonomic systems has included vascular systems for industrial and aerospace applications, microcapsule technologies which have been commercialized into coatings products that protect civil infrastructure, and rapid low-energy fabrication of high-grade thermoset polymers and composites, the first products of which are currently available for utility repair and maintenance applications.
OTM Director Nathan Hoffmann comments, “My office is honored to present the first Discovery-to-Impact award to Dr. Sottos and Dr. Moore. Their longstanding commitment to seeing their work transferred outside the university for industrial application and public benefit has resulted in the creation of companies, jobs, and commercial products which is exactly the kind of impact this award seeks to recognize.”
The Emerging Innovator Award celebrates an important milestone in the innovation journey, recognizing the broader potential of a research discovery and taking the first formal step toward exploring its translation into societal or commercial impact.
All faculty members reaching this milestone during the year are recognized as Emerging Innovators, creating an annual cohort of researchers beginning their engagement with the University’s innovation and commercialization ecosystem.
"Innovation begins with bold ideas and the courage to pursue them,” says Susan Martinis, Senior Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at Illinois. "These faculty members saw the potential of their discoveries to make a difference and took action to bring those ideas forward. We are proud to recognize their creativity, initiative, and commitment to translating research into impact.”