Women in Chemistry

Priti Kharel, a sixth-year graduate student in the lab of Pinshane Huang, has been awarded the Gary Schuster Mentoring Scholarship, and Prakriti Das, a fifth-year graduate student in the lab of...

Two PhD graduates, Qi Hua and Falon Kalutantirige, were awarded the 2024 Klemperer Award for Outstanding Materials Chemistry Ph.D. Thesis in the Department of Chemistry.

The AAAS selected Prof. Landes “for the development of next-generation tools and models to image and understand dynamics governing separations at soft interfaces at the single analyte limit.”

The Interim Director of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, chemistry Prof. Catherine Murphy was recently appointed to a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and...

On March 6, the 2024 LAS Dean's Distinguished Lecture will feature Professor Zaida (Zan) Luthey-Schulten talking about her pioneering research into constructing 4D models of a living minimal cell.

A new study led by professor Ying Diao brings fresh insight into the development of semiconductor materials that can do things their traditional silicon counterparts cannot – harness the power of...

A team led by chemistry professor Paul Hergenrother and former graduate student Emily Geddes (PhD, '22) has discovered the physical and chemical rules for overcoming the defenses of Pseudomonas...

Synthetic molecules created by researchers in the lab of chemistry Prof. Lisa Olshansky could lead to more energy efficient solar energy conversion technology.

A recent Phd graduate in Chemistry at Illinois, Lucero acknowledges hard work and the support of people who genuinely care about her growth as a scientist and as a person as the keys to her success.

Professor Landes is being recognized with this Biophysical Society award for "exciting developments of single molecule measurement techniques, and their application to chemical and biological systems...

A $30 million NSF grant supports the new center at the Beckman Institute, where Zaida Luthey-Schulten and Martin Gruebele will lead team members, who also include chemistry professors Angad Mehta and...

The award is given each year to a young investigator who has made outstanding contributions to the field of bioinorganic chemistry and includes an Award Lecture at the annual Metals in Biology...

Retired from Procter & Gamble, Sandra Murawski gives back to Chemistry at Illinois to support the excellence in teaching and mentoring she experienced in her education and career.

Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering’s Jiachun Shi has received the 2023 Gender Equity and Inclusion in the Chemical Sciences (GEICS) Inclusive Leadership Award, and Catherine Jalomo in the...

The Larry R. Faulkner Endowed Chair in Chemistry will begin the job Aug. 16.

Shen is one of 16 researchers from the U.S. and Canada to receive a $50,000 award in the final year of Scialog: Microbiome, Neurobiology and Disease, an initiative sponsored by Research...

The Chemistry at Illinois graduate, who is the Chief Inclusion Officer at Dow, delivered the keynote address during the Department of Chemistry's May 2023 Convocation Ceremony on the University of...

With more than 45 years of experience in the chemical industry, including research for Dow Chemical R&D, earning seven U.S. patents, and as a business leader for Dow Plastics, Dr. Marinda Li Wu...

Researchers led by chemistry Professor Nancy Makri have developed an illustration technique that displays quantum features in an easy-to-read diagram called a coherence map, and they are using these...

Chemistry graduate student Marya Ornelas and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering graduate student Vanessa DaSilva both received C2 Outstanding Mentor Awards for their work with undergraduate...

The St. Elmo Brady Postdoctoral Inclusive Excellence Symposium was created in 2020 to highlight the work of talented postdoctoral researchers from traditionally underrepresented groups by inviting...

One of the highest professional honors a scientist can receive, chemistry professor Nancy Makri is among 120 members and 23 international members elected this year to recognize their distinguished...

A fourth-year graduate student, Anita Wo is the recipient of the Advocate Award, which recognizes an Illinois faculty member, staff member, or student who consistently "walks the walk" and advocates...

Qian Chen, an Illinois professor of Materials Science & Engineering and Chemistry, co-led a research team with Erik Lutijen at Northwestern University that observed nanoparticles self-assembling...

Research by Greg Girolami, the William and Janet Lycan Professor of Chemistry, uncovered previously unknown details about the enigmatic English scholar Margaret Bryan, including her family background...

With support from the local ACS chapter and the Department of Chemistry, WCC was officially founded in October 2005, and today, the graduate student organization continues to fulfill its mission to...

Chemistry professor Mei Shen is among 126 early-career researchers receiving the 2023 Sloan Research Fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Professor Olshansky will participate in the Kavli Frontiers of Science symposia of the NAS, which bring together scientists who are 45 or younger to engage in exceptional research in a variety of...

A third-year PhD student in Chemistry at Illinois, Danielle Loving is a 2022 National Science Foundation Fellow, a mentor in the C2 program, and a research associate in the lab of Professor Martin...

Researchers in the Han group are developing a single molecule resolution spatial omics platform and new analytical methods that extract unique biological insights from spatial omics data.

The National Academy of Sciences award recognizes Timken's groundbreaking work at Chevron on innovative catalysts, which has been instrumental in making oil refineries safer, and fossil fuels more...

Platform developed by a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign research team led by chemistry professor Angad Mehta can be adapted to a range of current and emerging RNA viruses for development of...

The Packard Fellowships in Science and Engineering are awarded to innovative early-career scientists and engineers pursuing new areas of research. Tang is an alum of Professor Wilfred van der Donk's...

The American Chemical Society has announced the 2023 National Award winners, including chemistry professors Scott Denmark and Nancy Makri. The recipients also include Illinois chemistry alumnus Mark...

Chemistry graduate student Anita Wo received the Gender Equity and Inclusion in the Chemical Sciences Inclusive Leadership Award and Claudia Berdugo-Díaz, a Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering...

The Department of Chemistry's newest group of St. Elmo Brady scholars — Alexis Duncan, Kaya Moody, and Kyla Duke from Howard University — just finished 10 weeks of a summer research experience in...

These five SEED awards announced by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement offer Cottrell Scholars the opportunity to start high-risk, high-reward new research, granting each recipient $50,...

The Radding award was established in 1994 by the Silicon Valley Section of the ACS to recognize demonstrated, dedicated, unselfish leadership, service and significant contributions, over a sustained...

The daughter of Samoan parents and the first of seven children to attend college, Tepora Su’a knows firsthand the challenges of navigating higher education as a STEM major and first-generation...

Faculty member and Head of the Department of Chemistry is named winner of the Centenary Prize for pioneering work with gold nanocrystals and excellence in communication.

The annual Willis H. Flygare Memorial Lecture in Physcial Chemistry featured Naomi Halas, a Rice University professor who is a pioneering researcher in the field of plasmonics.

Four Illinois chemistry graduate students have been selected 2022 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellows and four more were accorded honorable mention.

​​​​​​​A research team led by Professor M. Christina White has discovered a new chemical reaction that provides a simple, rapid way of making tertiary amines – swinging the door wide open to the...

As the CEO of LanzaTech, a carbon capture company that recently announced plans to go public, Holmgren is guiding the company in its goal to transform waste carbon into a variety of materials,...

A chemistry major who graduated in the Class of 1995, King-McNeil was promoted last year to Senior Director of Research & Development for Olay Franchise & Packaging Innovation at Procter and...

Abdul-Aziz (PhD, '17) has been awarded a $538,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award to develop a novel approach to convert greenhouse gases into chemicals that can be used as...

This study led by Deborah Leckband, a professor in the departments of chemistry, chemical and biomolecular engineering, and bioengineering, found that cadherins that bond with growth factor...

Research Corporation for Science Advancement, America's first foundation dedicated wholly to science, has named a diverse group of 24 early career scholars in chemistry, physics and astronomy as...

A research team led by Chemistry at Illinois alum Rommie Amaro, who is a University of California San Diego professor, has modeled for the first time the delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus inside...

A third-year graduate student, Susanna Barrett weaves into her busy schedule time for mentoring other students both outside the lab and in the lab where she is currently doing a lot of foundational...

Organized by the Department of Chemistry's ACS Women Chemist Committee, this year's annual event will be virtual and feature a poster session, two seminar speakers and a reception for networking...

Early detection of sepsis is a critical need in the healthcare industry, and the Illinois research team that includes chemistry professor Hee-Sun Han has received a $2 million grant from the National...

Graduate student Melissa Lucero has been selected the 2021-22 winner of the Professor Gary Schuster Mentoring Scholarship. This graduate scholarship was...

Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology features student researcher Melissa Lucero, a fifth-year PhD student studying chemistry and chemical biology in the lab of chemistry professor...

The award, presented by Langmuir and the American Chemical Society Division of Colloid & Surface Chemistry, recognizes individuals working in the interdisciplinary field of colloid...

With more than 10 years of experience as an Illinois chemistry lecturer, Tina Huang is the department's new Director of General Chemistry, a mostly administrative role responsible for the loads of...

The Johnson & Johnson WISTEM2D Scholar program recognizes scholars in Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, Manufacturing and Design, and provides each with $150,000 in research funding and...

Six multidisciplinary teams from the United States and Canada received awards in the inaugural year of Scialog: Microbiome, Neurobiology and Disease, an initiative to better understand...

A total of 62 students comprise this graduate student class (61 PhD candidates and one Master of Science in Teaching Chemistry). That total also includes two student deferrals from Fall 2020. That...

The Lincoln Excellence for Assistant Professors (LEAP) award is granted to faculty early in their career based on scholarly productivity and contributions to the educational mission of their...

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign senior Sriyankari Chitti, a chemistry major and undergraduate researcher is one of 76 students to be offered this award from more than 8,000 applicants around...

Chemistry professors Nancy Makri and Kenneth Schweizer are among the 252 new members elected this year to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the oldest honor...

Alum Alveda Williams (PhD, ’02, Gupta) explains in a recent Q&A in Nature Chemistry how she moved from Research and Development at Dow into another "area of strength and passion,” becoming the...

Two long, distinguished academic careers in chemistry have come to an end in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University Maryland with the retirements of professor...

Professor Mei Shen has received the 2021 Arthur F. Findeis Award for Achievements by a Young Analytical Scientist from the American Chemical Society's Division of Analytical Chemistry. The...

The College of Liberal Arts & Sciences has selected Sarah Sheeley (PhD, '04, Sweedler) in the Department of Chemistry for the 2021 LAS Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising.

More than 30 years ago, Anna Bertelloni was a postdoctoral researcher working on natural products from marine organisms in the lab of UIUC chemistry Prof. Kenneth L. Rinehart. That work led to...

An assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California-Berkeley, Markita Landry (PhD, ’12) was a double-major in chemistry and physics...

The Physical Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society has named Nancy Makri the recipient of the 2021 Award in Theoretical Chemistry, recognizing her research into long-time numerical path...

A group of Illinois chemistry graduate students successfully demonstrated chemistry experiments for 32 Champaign and Urbana middle school students via Zoom during an all-virtual edition of the annual...

A member of professor Alison Fout's research group, Tabitha Miller looks ahead to postdoctoral research at Argonne National Laboratory as she nears completion of her PhD in chemistry in early 2021.

Amanda East, a PhD student in chemistry, works in the lab of chemistry professor Jeff Chan and with the Liang Research Group as a graduate fellow at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and...

On Nov. 9, the Publications Division of ACS announced Sara E. Skrabalak (PhD, '06, Suslick), an Indiana University chemistry professor, as editor-in-chief of both Chemistry of Materials...

The American Chemical Society selected Lydia E. M. Hines (PhD, '71) as the recipient of the 2020 Helen M. Free Award for Public Outreach. The award is presented annually by the ACS Committee on...

A team leader at Chevron Company, Hye Kyung Timken (PhD, '87, Oldfield) is one of 10 alumni award winners from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences honored during LAS Impact 2020, a weeklong...

The award will enable Shen and her research group to create new electrochemical methods and microscopes to detect, measure, and visualize the presence of chemicals that are used as...

The publication's series focusing on eight "Holy Grails" of chemistry explains how the White research group's work is one of a group of discoveries that has “contributed to a blossoming of...

An alumna from the Department of Chemistry is one of 10 alumni from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences to be named recipients of the college’s 2020 annual alumni awards.

A sixth-year PhD candidate in the area of organic chemistry, Edzna Garcia shares her story of perseverance as a first-generation college student who realized in high school that she wanted to pursue...

Graduate student Alison Wallum's commitment to inclusive excellence was recognized with the annual Women in Chemistry Inclusive Leadership Award, and graduate student Hannah Toru was also recognized...

As the head of Technical Development Asia Pacific for BASF in Singapore, alumna Sindhu Easwara Menon leads the technical service and application development teams for plastics applications.

Professor David Sarlah and Professor Hee-Sun Han have interdisciplinary projects that have been selected for the Cancer Center at Illinois’ annual seed grant awards.

Professor Catherine J. Murphy becomes the first woman to receive the American Chemical Society’s National Award in Inorganic Chemistry.

Professor Lisa Olshansky is one of 15 researchers chosen for the Searle Scholars Program, a national biomedical research grant program primarily focused on the potential of applicants to make...

Namuunzul Otgontseren, a junior studying chemistry who also works in Professor Jefferson Chan’s research group, has been awarded a Beckman Institute Undergraduate Fellowship.

Three chemistry graduates, Elizabeth McDaniel, Elizabeth Murphy and Alayna Johnson are part of a select group, Senior 100 Honorary, which recognizes students who are academically successful, but more...

For demonstrating exceptional leadership on campus, chemistry senior Elizabeth Murphy has been awarded the Patricia E. Askew Leadership Award for 2020.

More than 60 years ago, Eunice S. Wu left her home in Taiwan for the United States to study chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, following in the footsteps of her father who...

Seven University of Illinois graduate students have been named 2020 Beckman Institute Graduate Fellows, including chemistry graduate student Amanda East. The program offers University of Illinois...

Elizabeth P. Rogers, a former Department of Chemistry faculty member who retired in 1988 after 25 years of teaching general chemistry courses, has died at the age of 100.

Scientists are striving to understand quantum phenomena, with hopes of designing materials and structures that could capture light and turn it into chemical energy, or even make reliable quantum...

As an undergraduate in chemistry at the University of Illinois, Dr. Jeanne Hankett (BS, ’10, chemistry) found her drive for analytical chemistry working in the lab of Professor Andy Gewirth, doing...

Megan Kats, chemistry undergraduate, was awarded Cabot Microelectronic's Global Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) Excellence Award. This is a global award given to a handful of employees at each...

Alison Fout is one of fourteen University of Illinois faculty selected as a 2019-20 Building Pathways Fellow by the Office of the Provost. Building Pathways for Emerging Leaders is a year-long...

The Women Chemists Committee (WCC) and Younger Chemists Committee of East Central Illinois Chapter (YCC) were each recognized at the American Chemical Society’s fall 2019 national meeting with...

Elizabeth Murphy, an undergraduate in the Paul Braun group, is one of three winners in the Beckman Institute’s research image contest. The goal of the contest was to submit images that showed the...

Professor Catherine Murphy, along with Dr. Haimei Zheng, Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory, are this years' joint MRS Medal winners.

​​​​​​​Lauren Hagler, a beginning fifth-year graduate student in Steve Zimmerman’s group, is the recipient of the first annual Women in Chemistry (WIC) Inclusive Leadership Award.

The National Science Foundation is funding the new Center for Synthesizing Quantum Coherence (CSQC) as a Phase I Center for Chemical Innovation. Led by Duke, and featuring distinguished...

On June 29 and July 13, more than 100 local middle school girls attended the 11th annual Bonding with Chemistry Day Camp for Girls, organized by the Women Chemists Committee.

Professor M. Christina White has been named the William H. and Janet G. Lycan Professor in the School of Chemical Sciences.

Elizabeth Murphy received the Susan Teegarden Morrison Leadership Scholarship from the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs based on her roles as secretary and outreach chair in the American Chemical...

Alison Fout explores the power to save images. She is researching new catalysts, as an associate professor in chemistry, that could one day solve a growing list of environmental, biological, and...

Catherine J. Murphy is the recipient of the 2019 Remsen Award, presented by the American Chemical Society Maryland Section.

Marina Philip is a PhD candidate studying analytical chemistry in the Jonathan Sweedler group. With a background in journalism, Marina’s extracurricular efforts focus on outreach, diversity, and...

The gold nanocrystals created by Catherine Murphy carry huge potential The gold nanoparticles created by Catherine Murphy, the Larry R. Faulkner Endowed Chair in Chemistry, range in size from 5...

Congratulations to the WCC and YCC! The East Central Illinois (ECI) chapter of the American Chemical Society (ACS) received the following from the ACS:

Professor M. Christina White is the 2019 winner of the ACS Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, one of the American Chemical Society’s highest National Awards. Prof. White joins a...

The Women Chemists Committee (WCC) Bonding with Chemistry Day Camp is an annual event with the purpose of exposing middle school girls to various areas of chemistry.

This March, we recognize a few of the many individuals whose lives and work have inspired and promoted the development of women in the chemical sciences. When alumna Yulan Tong (MS, ’58;...