RCSA Welcomes 2025 Class of Cottrell Scholars
Top row: Camille Avestruz, Lucas Busta, Bassil El-Zaatari, Tyler Engstrom, Aaron Harrison. 2nd row: Nick Jackson, Alvine Kamaha, Lawrence Lee, Chris Li, Adam Miller, Ryan Poling-Skutvik. 3rd row: Liliana Rivera Sandoval, Sabrina Stierwalt, V. Ashley Villar, Allison Walker, Marissa Weichman.
Research Corporation for Science Advancement, America's first foundation dedicated wholly to science, has named 16 early career scholars in chemistry, physics, and astronomy as recipients of its 2025 Cottrell Scholar Awards. Each awardee receives $120,000.
“These distinguished awardees join a multidisciplinary, multigenerational force of more than 500 Cottrell Scholars from colleges and universities across the United States and Canada,” said Daniel Linzer, President & CEO of RCSA. “In their own classrooms and labs, and together through projects with national impact, Cottrell Scholars are innovators in science and teaching at their own institutions and beyond.”
Cottrell Scholars are chosen through a rigorous peer-review process of applications from public and private research universities and primarily undergraduate institutions. Their award proposals incorporate both research and science education.
This year’s awardees represent 16 different institutions. For five of those institutions, this is their first Cottrell Scholar.
“This year’s class is smaller than usual because so many institutions froze faculty hiring in 2020,” said RCSA Senior Program Director Silvia Ronco. “As teacher-scholars who started their first tenure-track appointments during the pandemic, they have shown remarkable resilience, creativity, and dedication to student learning. We are proud to welcome them to the Cottrell Scholar community.”
The awards, started in 1994, are named for educator, inventor, and science visionary Frederick Gardner Cottrell, who founded Research Corporation for Science Advancement in 1912.
As their careers advance, Cottrell Scholars become eligible to compete for several additional levels of funding through the Cottrell Plus Awards. Scholars meet each July at the annual Cottrell Scholar Conference to network, exchange ideas, and develop collaborative projects. This year’s event is scheduled for July 16-18 in Tucson, Arizona.
The Cottrell Scholar community also includes senior scientists who have received RCSA's Robert Holland Jr. Award, as well as Fulbright-Cottrell Scholars from Germany, who participate in conferences and collaborate on team projects.
This year’s Cottrell Scholars are:
Camille Avestruz, Physics, University of Michigan – Modeling Giants in our Universe: Galaxy Clusters as Probes of Cosmology
Lucas Busta, Chemistry, University of Minnesota Duluth – Using Artificial Intelligence to Predict Enzyme Products and Enhance Chemical Education
Bassil El-Zaatari, Chemistry, Davidson College – Catalyzing Dynamic Exchanges in Polymers and the Classroom
Tyler Engstrom, Physics, University of Northern Colorado – Prestress-Generated Odd Elasticity with Applications to Waveguides
Aaron Harrison, Chemistry, Trinity University – Resolving Brown Carbon and Bioaerosol Fluorescence in Atmospheric Studies
Nick Jackson, Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – Electronic Dynamics Using Coarse-Grained Molecular Representations
Alvine Kamaha, Physics, University of California, Los Angeles – Improving Background Mitigation in Dark Matter Searches and Improving the Diversity of the Workforce in Dark Matter Searches
Lawrence Lee, Physics, University of Tennessee, Knoxville – Developing Muon Collider Technologies: Building Tomorrow's Discovery Collider Today
Chris Li, Chemistry, University at Buffalo SUNY – Development of a Plasma Electrochemical System for Air-to-Ammonia Conversion
Adam Miller, Astronomy, Northwestern University – Simultaneously Early and Late: Leveraging LS4 and LSST to Understand the Physics of White Dwarf Supernovae
Ryan Poling-Skutvik, Physics, University of Rhode Island – Developing a Dynamic Taxonomy of Soft Matter for a New Era of Material Design
Liliana Rivera Sandoval, Astronomy, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley – Investigating the Effects of Stellar Interactions in Globular Clusters through their Compact Binary Population
Sabrina Stierwalt, Astronomy, Occidental College – Fostering Community in Undergraduate Physics Students through Community Based Learning and Innovative Research
V. Ashley Villar, Astronomy, Harvard University – Closing the Gap: Linking Luminous Red Novae to Binary Stellar Evolution
Allison Walker, Chemistry, Vanderbilt University – Discovery of Enzyme Catalyzed Chemical Reactions Guided by Artificial Intelligence
Marissa Weichman, Chemistry, Princeton University – Quantum State Resolution of Aromatic Molecules for Laboratory Astrochemistry
Research Corporation for Science Advancement is a private foundation that advances early stage, high-potential basic research in the physical sciences (astronomy, chemistry, physics, and related fields) at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. It creates and supports engaged communities of early career researchers through the Cottrell Scholar Program, Scialog, and RCSA Fellows initiative.
