4 Senior Scientists Receive RCSA’s 2024 Holland Awards
From left: Marcel Agüeros, Jorge López, Nadya Mason, Leyte Winfield.
Four senior scientists, mentors, and leaders will join the Cottrell Scholar community as recipients of Research Corporation for Science Advancement’s Robert Holland Jr. Award for Research Excellence and Contributions to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. The awards, which come with a $5,000 cash prize, honor the late Robert Holland Jr., an engineer and corporate executive who served on RCSA’s Board of Directors.
The 2024 awardees are Marcel Agüeros, Astronomy, Columbia University; Jorge López, Physics, University of Texas, El Paso; Nadya Mason, Physics, University of Chicago; and Leyte Winfield, Chemistry, Spelman College.
Holland Award recipients will attend annual Cottrell Scholar conferences and be eligible to participate in Cottrell Scholar Collaborative projects to promote excellence in science education. They will also be eligible to apply for other Cottrell Plus awards, including Cottrell IMPACT, SEED, and STAR Awards.
“These accomplished scientists join a like-minded community of people who care about teaching and mentoring,” said RCSA President & CEO Daniel Linzer. “Their points of view will add an important dimension to timely and needed conversations about breaking down barriers to careers in science, an endeavor to which Bob Holland was deeply committed.”
Holland Award recipients will be introduced and will give presentations at this year’s Cottrell Scholar Conference, which will be held July 17-19 in Tucson.
“The idea for this award came from a group of Cottrell Scholars,” said RCSA Senior Program Director Silvia Ronco. “In 2023, the first Holland Awardees added expertise and strength to the community and to its collaborative projects, and we look forward to learning from these new colleagues as well.”
Agüeros, Associate Professor of Astronomy at Columbia University, is an expert in stellar astrophysics whose group studies the rotation and magnetic activity of Sun-like stars to understand their evolution. In nearly 30 years of interacting with learners from the elementary to graduate levels, he has worked to create systemic changes that address the historic underrepresentation of women and minorities in science. As a graduate student at the University of Washington, he founded the Pre-Major in Astronomy Program (Pre-MAP) for underrepresented first-year undergraduates, now in its 19th year, and later launched and led a successful post-baccalaureate Bridge to the Ph.D. Program in STEM. In addition to spending four years as a trustee of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), he was a member of its Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion in Astronomy Graduate Education, which played a crucial role in challenging the culture of Ph.D. admissions practices. He serves on the advisory committee of TEAM-UP Together, an initiative to double the number of Black students earning physics and astronomy degrees nationally by 2030, and on the users committee of NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission. In 2023, he was named a Fellow of the AAS for his innovative observational work and leadership in inclusion and equity.
López is a Professor of Physics at the University of Texas at El Paso whose significant research contributions to the field of nuclear physics are matched by mentorship and advocacy that has helped launch scores of his students into successful careers in science and engineering, both in academia and in industry. Lopez started his career at UTEP as Assistant Professor, moved up the ladder and chaired the Department of Physics for eight years, helping undergraduates have several semesters of meaningful research experience. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society for his contributions to the understanding of the liquid-gas nuclear phase transition, but he has worked in many other areas, often to accommodate the research interests or opportunities for undergraduates. In 1995, he helped create the National Society of Hispanic Physicists. A renowned teacher, he received the University of Texas Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award and was admitted to the UT Academy of Distinguished Teachers. He is a current member of the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee of the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, and a recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring from the White House and the NSF. He was inducted into the Mexican Academy of Sciences in 2012.
Mason, Dean of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago, is recognized as a role model and proponent of the idea that students of every background should have the opportunity to discover STEM for themselves. She maintains a strong research program in experimental condensed matter physics focusing on advancing the understanding and control of quantum materials at the nanoscale. She is an ardent communicator, a proponent of outreach, and an active one-on-one mentor who has used her influence to encourage mentoring on a larger scale. As Chair of the American Physical Society’s Committee on Minorities, she led the creation of the “National Mentoring Community,” which aims to pair every underrepresented undergraduate student with a local mentor. As Director of the Illinois Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, she created a center-wide focus on mentoring, with required mentor-mentee contracts and mentor trainings at all levels. Mason is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is an American Physical Society Fellow. She is also an in-demand keynote speaker and member of numerous national committees and advisory groups.
Winfield, Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Division Chair for the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at Spelman College, is honored for her love of experimentation and organic synthesis along with her unyielding commitment to ensuring that women of African descent can thrive in STEM pathways. Her research in drug design and synthesis produced a library of tricyclic molecules or benzimidazoles that have therapeutic potential against reproductive cancers disproportionately impacting African Americans, and her curricular innovations have improved performance among students from underrepresented groups, creating opportunities for undergraduates whose own research accomplishments have been nationally recognized. She launched a Cosmetic Science program that represents one of only two at the undergraduate level in the United States and the first of its kind at a Primarily Undergraduate Institution and a Historically Black College and University. She serves as an adviser for several National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health-funded initiatives, is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society, and was recently awarded the Henry C. McBay Outstanding Teacher Award from the National Organization of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers.
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, as well as its newly launched RCSA Fellows initiative.
