Program Director
Eileen M. Spain, Ph.D.
Eileen M. Spain joined Research Corporation for Science Advancement as Program Director in August 2023 after serving on the faculty and in the administration of Occidental College since 1995.
Spain, a physical chemist and member of the 1995 class of Cottrell Scholars, is a first-generation college student from Northern California. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Sonoma State University after transferring from Santa Rosa Junior College, and her Ph.D. from the University of Utah.
Developing student and postdoctoral talent through inclusive excellence in teaching, research, and mentorship as a teacher-scholar and a leader is the singular passion of her career. As Carl F. Braun Professor of Chemistry at Occidental, she mentored and trained 74 undergraduates and supported four postdoctoral scholars, including women and persons of color and other underrepresented groups, in her research program.
In recent years, her research focused on physical chemistry at interfaces where the interface is employed as a space to make new materials or to reveal new chemical reactions or dynamics. Her career peer-reviewed publications span molecular spectroscopy, atomic collision dynamics, and since establishing her own laboratory at Occidental, characterization of bacteria, films, and interfacial structures with an emphasis on atomic force microscopy techniques.
Spain has held visiting faculty appointments at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the California Institute of Technology. She served as chair of Occidental’s department of chemistry from 2006 to 2009. Over the past several years, she served as an elected chemistry councilor for the Council on Undergraduate Research as well a member of the examinations committee of the American Chemical Society. Spain helped to successfully shepherd Occidental through its reaccreditation process as special assistant to the dean of the college for assessment and accreditation. Starting in spring 2021, Spain served with other faculty to implement initiatives from a Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Inclusive Excellence 3 grant award to advance programs for a STEM community of inclusion and equity.