2014 Cottrell Scholar Awards
Instituted in 1994, the Cottrell Scholar Awards are named in honor of Frederick Gardner Cottrell, scientist, inventor and philanthropist. Cottrell founded what is now RCSA in 1912 to provide support for scientific research and experimentation at scholarly institutions.
Outstanding early career teacher-scholars at Ph.D.-granting institutions are accepted into the Cottrell Scholar program following a rigorous peer-review process. Only about 10 percent of those who submit proposals are successful.
The awards are presented to early career faculty who are committed to excel at both research and teaching. RCSA Interim President Jack Pladziewicz, notes, “It may well be that not all research faculty can do this simultaneously and early in their careers, but the very best can.”
There are currently more than 270 awardees in the U.S., and a number of them have recently formed the Cottrell Scholar Collaborative, a group that works to improve science education at American universities.
The Spring 2014 awards recognize a dozen teacher-scholars and total $900,000. The awardees are:
Shannon W. Boettcher, assistant professor of chemistry, University of Oregon
Materials for Solar Water Splitting: Advancing Undergraduate Research and Controlling Chemistry and Charge Transport at Interfaces
Andrew J. Boydston, assistant professor of chemistry, University of Washington
Quantitative Assessment of Flex Activation in Polymer Mechanochemistry
Rebecca A. Butcher, assistant professor of chemistry, University of Florida
Chemical Communication in C. Elegans and Incorporation of Natural Products Discovery into the Classroom
Mircea Dinca, assistant professor of chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Teaching Sponges New Tricks: Self-Assembly, Charge Transport, and Electric Conductivity in Microporous Metal-Organic Frameworks
Carla Fröhlich, assistant professor of physics, North Carolina State University
The Origin of the Heaviest Nuclei in the Universe
Dinah Loerke, assistant professor of physics, University of Denver
Towards a Mechanistic Understanding of Cell lntercalation in Germ-Band Extension
Tyrel M. McQueen, assistant professor of chemistry, Johns Hopkins University
Superconductivity: From Discovery to Rational Design
Andriy Nevidomskyy, assistant professor of physics, Rice University
Superconductivity in Strange Metals: Some Like It Hot
Jennifer A. Prescher, assistant professor chemistry, University of California, Irvine
Expanding the Bioluminescent Toolbox for Visualizing Metastatic Disease
Cindy Regal, assistant professor of physics, University of Colorado, Boulder
Measuring Micromechanical Motion at Quantum Limits and Identifying Successful Attributes of Undergraduate Research in Large Physics Departments
Joseph E. Subotnik, assistant professor of chemistry, University of Pennsylvania
What Every Undergraduate Should Learn About Electronic Relaxation
Xiaodong Xu, assistant professor of physics, University of Washington
Valley Quantum Optoelectronics of Monolayer Semiconductors
More about the Cottrell Scholar Award can be found here.
