RCSA Welcomes 2022 Class of Cottrell Scholars
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 recipients of its 2022 Cottrell Scholar Awards. Each awardee receives $100,000.
“These exceptional teacher-scholars are chosen not just for their research and educational programs but for their potential to become academic leaders at their institutions and beyond,” said RCSA President & CEO Daniel Linzer.
Recipients are chosen through a rigorous peer-review process of applications from a wide variety of public and private research universities and primarily undergraduate institutions in the United States and Canada. Their award proposals incorporate both research and science education. Read more about them here.
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 with potential national impact. This year’s event is scheduled for July 6-8 in Tucson, Arizona.
“The class of 2022 joins an innovative and impactful community,” said RCSA Senior Program Director Silvia Ronco. “We look forward to seeing these latest awardees leave their mark on the face of science and academia throughout their careers.”
This year’s Cottrell Scholars are:
Darcy Barron, physics, University of New Mexico – Enabling Discoveries in Fundamental Physics by Maximizing the Sensitivity of Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization Surveys from Chile
Carl Brozek, chemistry, University of Oregon – Clean Water from Porous Nanocrystals: An Undergraduate Training Program in Soft Skills and Sustainable Materials
Ilse Cleeves, astronomy, University of Virginia – Identifying Molecular Patterns that Reveal the Chemistry of Planet Formation
Scott Cushing, chemistry, California Institute of Technology – The Role of Picosecond Correlations in Solid-State Electrolytes for Batteries
Ryan Davis, chemistry, Trinity University – Chemistry Beyond the Beaker: Exploring Supramolecular Assembly in Aqueous Microdroplets and Addressing Inequities in Chemical Education
Serena Eley, physics, Colorado School of Mines – Identifying the Microscopic Origins of Energy Loss Mechanisms in Superconducting Quantum Circuits through Defect Landscape Engineering
Ben Feldman, physics, Stanford University – Thermodynamic Characterization of Metal-insulator Transitions in Dual Gated Moiré Superlattices
Kate Follette, astronomy, Amherst College – Moving Forward – Towards Accurate Recovery and Interpretation of Accreting Protoplanets and a Socially Just Undergraduate Astronomy Curriculum
Wen-fai Fong, astronomy, Northwestern University – Toward the Next Breakthroughs in Time-Domain Astronomy: The Origins of Fast Radio Bursts
Stephen Fried, chemistry, Johns Hopkins University – Bringing New Life to Prebiotic Peptide Chemistry and to the Physical Chemistry Curriculum
Ryan Hadt, chemistry, California Institute of Technology – Research: Learning How to Engineer Spin-Phonon Coupling in Molecules and Materials; Educational: Tackling Theoretical Topics in Inorganic Chemistry: A Worked Example Approach
Christine Hagan, chemistry, College of the Holy Cross – Mechanistic Studies of Protein Toxin Delivery by Bacterial Contact-Dependent Inhibition Systems
Sarah Keane, chemistry, University of Michigan – RNA Matchmaker: The Role of Loops and Mismatches in RNA Processing
Daniel Keedy, chemistry, CUNY Advanced Science Research Center & City College of New York – Illuminating Structural Motions that Underlie Allostery in Dynamic Phosphatase Enzymes
Michael Larsen, chemistry, Western Washington University – Diverse N-Functionalized Polyureas by Cationic Ring-Opening Polymerization of Iminooxazolidines
Lauren Marbella, chemistry, Columbia University – Tracking (Electro)Chemical Reduction at Electrode/Electrolyte Interfaces with Operando NMR
Krystle McLaughlin, chemistry, Vassar College – Structural Basis for the Conjugative Spread of Antibiotic Resistance
Jorge Muñoz, physics, University of Texas at El Paso – Fast and Accurate Computation of Anharmonic Phonons in Polymorphic Materials
Lisa Olshansky, chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – Exploring and Exploiting Conformational Dynamics for Proton-Coupled Electron Transfer
Zachariah Page, chemistry, University of Texas at Austin – Color-Coded Orthogonal Photochemistry from a Single Dye & Guiding Student Mindsets in Organic Chemistry
Amanda Patrick, chemistry, Mississippi State University – Winnowing the Possible Identities of Metabolomics "Features" by Hydrogen-Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry
Orit Peleg, physics, University of Colorado Boulder – The Physics of Firefly Communications: Principles and Predictions
Aurora Pribram-Jones, chemistry, University of California, Merced – Reframing Interaction in Quantum Mechanical Ensembles and Across Chemistry Learning Communities
Ryan Trainor, astronomy, Franklin & Marshall College – Feedback in the Circumgalactic Medium Probed with Lyman-alpha Emission
Since the first class in 1994, the Cottrell Scholar community has grown in diversity and now comprises more than 500 awardees. (Learn more about who our Cottrell Scholars are by viewing the Cottrell Scholars Dashboard.)
The awards are named for educator, inventor and science visionary Frederick Gardner Cottrell, who founded Research Corporation for Science Advancement in 1912.
Research Corporation for Science Advancement is a private foundation that funds 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 inclusive communities of early career researchers through two core programs: the Cottrell Scholar Program and Scialog.
