Chemistry Faculty and Staff Collect Honors for Their Work

Awards for Teaching and Mentoring

Assistant Professor Ginger Shultz won a 2019 Provost's Teaching Innovation Prize. This prize was given for her MWrite: Writing to Learn in Large Introductory Courses Across Campus project. 

U-M’s Science Learning Center awarded Professor Brian Coppola their first annual Faculty Champion Award at our 30th Anniversary event. Brian played a critical role in the origins and development of the SLC, particularly the Peer-Led Study Group Program and has remained a trusted collaborator and supporter of the SLC for many years. Read more about Coppola in this profile by our Science writing fellow, Taylor Soucy.

Professor Eitan Giva and Assistant Professor Ginger Shultz have received 2019 Individual Awards for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education from College of LSA. This award recognizes faculty members who are exceptionally dedicated to the educational experiences of undergraduates, and who demonstrate this dedication through achievements and innovations in their own and others’ classrooms or academic programs. Giva was also recognized for many aspects of his teaching including his compute-to-learn project.[Read "Compute-To-Learn" Bridges Classroom to Real-World Experiences ] Shultz was recognized for several aspects of her work including the write-to-learn approach.

Adam Matzger received a 2019 Rackham Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award from the U-M Rackham Graduate School. He was nominated not only for mentoring of his students, but for his help in preparing in all of our students for industrial interviews and his work on the Mentoring Others Results in Excellence program at Rackham among other activities.

The U-M Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program has made two awards to Department of Chemistry women chemists. Professor Anne McNeil won the Willie Hobbs Moore Award: Claudia Joan Alexander Trailblazer Award for fostering diversity in STEM from. Dr. Moore was the first African American woman to earn a PhD in physics from any American university (See more about her inspiring story and the awards below). 

Graduate student Jill Harland in Nicolai Lehnert’s group won the Aspire, Advance, and Achieve Mentoring Award.

Rewarding Integration of Teaching and Research

Two U-M Chemistry professors have been named Cotrell Scholars for 2019. The winners and the work for which they were honored are:

• Charles C.L. McCrory, assistant professor of chemistry — Selective Electrocatalysis by Polymer-Encapsulated Catalysts: The Role of Charge and Substrate Transport on Catalytic Efficiency.

• Alison Narayan, assistant professor of chemistry — Biocatalytic Reactions for Selective, Sustainable Synthesis and Engaging Graduate Student Instructors for Improved Outcomes in Organic Chemistry.

The Cottrell Scholar program from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, a foundation dedicated to science, awards early career teacher-scholars in chemistry, physics and astronomy by providing significant discretionary awards for research. The program’s goal is to develop outstanding teacher-scholars who are recognized by their scientific communities for the quality and innovation of their research programs and their academic leadership skills.

Awards for Research and Scholarship

Narayan, William R Roush Assistant Professor, is also a research assistant professor, Life Sciences Institute (LSI). In March Narayan was named a 2019 Sloan Fellow. According to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, “[t]hese 126 early-career scholars represent the most promising scientific researchers working today. She was one of two people across the country to receive both Cottrell and Sloan awards. Read more in this profile from LSI: "Innovating on all fronts"

Jennifer Bridwell-Rabb is one of 15 early career scientists named a Searle scholar by the Searle Scholars Program, which provides $300,000 grants to support the research of promising biomedical and chemistry researchers. Bridwell-Rabb has also received a Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Award. About 35 of these competitive awards are given nationally across a broad spectrum of STEM and policy disciplines to help development of faculty in their first 2 years of independent work.

Professor Anne McNeil has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. “What a great honor for her and our department,” says Chemistry Chair Robert Kennedy.

This has been an outstanding spring for Assistant Professor Corinna Schindler. She received an Eli Lilly Grantee Award. The Eli Lilly Grantee supports “emerging young leaders in organic chemistry and is the longest running grant program in the pharmaceutical industry. It comes with a 2-year, $100,000 unrestricted research grant and a visit to a Lilly Symposium.”

Schindler also received the 2019 Marion Milligan Mason Award from the AAAS that is designed to kickstart research of early0career women researchers in the chemical sciences

Corinna Schindler’s tenure and promotion to Associate Professor was approved by the Regent's at their May meeting.

At the annual College of Literature, Science and Arts Staff Awards held recently, Chemistry staff were well represented among the awardees.

One of the major awards, the ROBIN SARRIS OUTSTANDING SUPERVISOR AWARD, was presented to Jan Maliakal, Chief Administrator.

Chemistry swept the Natural Sciences Division awards:
RISING STAR AWARD --Katie Foster, Funding and Masters Program Coordinator
OUTSTANDING INDIVIDUAL EMPLOYEE --Angie Cox, Undergraduate Program Coordinator
LSA CHIEF ADMINISTRATOR PEER DIVISIONAL AWARDS--Jan Maliakal, Chief Administrator

Also acknowledged at the ceremony were years of service at U-M. Chemistry staff recognized for ten years of service were David Braun, Joshua Buckner, and Angela Cox. Agnes Soderbeck was recognized for 30 years of service.