RCSA Announces 2022 Cottrell STAR and IMPACT Awards
Research Corporation for Science Advancement has named three outstanding Cottrell Scholars as recipients of its 2022 STAR and IMPACT Awards. CS 2010 Rae Robertson-Anderson, University of San Diego, and CS 2009 Scott Snyder, University of Chicago, have won STAR Awards, and CS 2004 Seth Cohen, University of California, San Diego, has won the IMPACT Award.
“Cottrell Scholars are leaders, not just in their own disciplines but across academia,” said RCSA President & CEO Daniel Linzer. “As they move forward in their careers, many of them make significant contributions to science and society, and these awards give us a chance to honor their achievements.”
The STAR (Science Teaching And Research) Award recognizes outstanding research and educational accomplishments, while the IMPACT Award recognizes the work of a Cottrell Scholar who has had a national impact in science through leadership and service. Both STAR and IMPACT awards include a $5,000 cash prize.
The awards will be presented at the 2022 Cottrell Scholar Conference, to be held July 6-8, 2022, in Tucson, Arizona. Recipients will give brief acceptance talks and will be available throughout the coming year to provide mentoring to their early career Cottrell Scholar colleagues, according to RCSA Senior Program Director Silvia Ronco.
STAR Award recipient Robertson-Anderson is an enthusiastic proponent of interdisciplinary scientific research who has pioneered optical tweezers microrheology and fluorescence microscopy methods to probe soft matter and biomaterials. She is a leading expert in the design, engineering and characterization of biopolymer networks critical to physics, biology and materials science research. Her lab has revolutionized approaches to design and characterize biopolymer composites and understand their emergent behavior. Robertson-Anderson’s commitment to student learning includes involving undergraduates in cutting-edge research, mentoring students in nontraditional settings, and fostering diversity, equity and inclusion. With funds from a National Science Foundation CAREER award, Robertson-Anderson created an interdisciplinary Biophysics Major at USD and is guiding physics departments at comparable institutions to develop similar programs. She developed a course exploring the interconnection of science, humanities and social justice, providing students with networking opportunities with R1 faculty and researchers, and arming them with the confidence and perspective to pursue and excel in graduate school. Her national level service includes work as a member of the Council on Undergraduate Research’s DEI Committee and the American Physical Society Division of Soft Matter. In 2019, she was named a Soft Matter Emerging Investigator.
STAR Award recipient Snyder is an accomplished organic chemist and pedagogical innovator committed to the education of undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students beyond his own lab and classroom. His research couples strategic thinking with reagent and reaction development in an effort to expand the ability to synthesize natural products reliably on scale, and to access architecturally diverse collections both rapidly and controllably. For example, his lab’s work using a unique family of terpenes, designing a synthesis so that each quaternary center is deliberately leveraged to simplify the construction of the next, provides a distinct planning logic that is applicable to other targets of similar complexity. Snyder’s influence on the practice of chemical education internationally has included, for the past decade, co-authoring with T. W. Graham Solomons and Craig B. Fryhle both the 11th and 12th editions of the widely used undergraduate textbook Organic Chemistry. For its new 13th edition, he has created 20 instructional videos incorporating successful classroom techniques and has developed a new problem set for each chapter to allow students to help solve a real problem drawn from cited primary literature. Snyder is also one of the authors of the RCSA-supported Teach Better, Save Time, and Have More Fun: A Guide to Teaching and Mentoring in Science book, a Cottrell Scholar Collaborative project, whose second edition is soon to be published.
IMPACT Award winner Seth Cohen is recognized as an active and impactful academic researcher who has dedicated much of his time and career to the betterment of the federal scientific endeavor and national science policy. Known for his work in the areas of inorganic and medicinal chemistry as well as materials science, he served in 2008-2009 as a Science Policy Fellow at the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy. His work there, to develop and produce guidelines to protect the integrity and professionalism of scientists, continues to have a lasting effect across federal agencies. Cohen is currently serving as a program manager in the Biological Technologies Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, where he manages research programs aimed at tackling problems of global significance, including pandemic disease, antibiotic resistance, and the increasing scarcity of freshwater resources. He is a member of the Chemical Society Reviews Editorial Board and a member of the American Chemical Society Central Science Advisory Board. Between maintaining an active research lab and his national service, Cohen is working to improve the position, perception, and appreciation of science among the nation’s leaders and decision makers.
STAR and IMPACT Award nominees must be at least 12 years beyond the year of their Cottrell Scholar Award and hold an academic position at a research university or primarily undergraduate institution in the United States or Canada.
The competitive Cottrell Plus Awards portfolio is aimed at advancing the skills, knowledge and experience of Cottrell Scholars toward attaining leadership roles in their institutions. Beyond STAR and IMPACT, the SEED (Singular Exceptional Endeavors of Discovery) awards support Cottrell Scholars as they launch exceptionally creative, new research or educational activities with the potential for high impact. The new Cottrell Postbac Awards offer support for undergraduate seniors to continue a research project for a year after graduation in the lab or research group of a Cottrell Scholar.
