Dear Friend of Chemistry,
I hope this summer afforded you the opportunity to take a break and refresh yourself. With the start of a new academic year upon us, this magazine highlights our successes of the past year, celebrating the achievements of our students, postdocs, faculty members, and staff.
Last year, I wrote about our need to invest in our research infrastructure. I am delighted to share with you the progress we have made on the Chemical Sciences Building project.
In January, I visited Olympia with Professor Dianne Harris, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, and met with key legislators working on the House and Senate capital budget. Our Washington state legislators recognized that maintaining a world class chemistry program is essential for our state’s workforce development. They acknowledged the vital role that chemists will play in the economy of the future with their skills in data science, machine learning, AI, quantum materials, and energy science. The State Legislature approved $5M in the supplemental budget request for the pre-design of a new building. The UW Board of Regents subsequently approved the execution of the Chemical Sciences Building project, and a design build team will be hired by early 2025. Next, the UW will request $125M in funding from the state for construction in the next biennium. Finally, to achieve our vision, the remaining funding will be secured by a $40M commitment from the College of Arts & Sciences and a $20M capital campaign that will include corporate partners, community members, and YOU – our alumni and friends! A New Building to Enable Modern Chemical Research provides an overview of this exciting initiative.
Our students continue to make us proud, and I am delighted to highlight a few here. Rahoul Banerjee Ghosh ’24 was awarded the Dean’s Medal in the Natural Sciences and his perfect 4.0 GPA was cited as “the least of his many accomplishments.” Biochemistry major Annabella Li was selected for the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship. Many congratulations to all the students who won NSF Graduate Research Fellowships including eight of our undergraduate students who will be starting grad school and three of our current graduate students. Three additional students received honorable mentions.
Our faculty have been recognized with many notable awards, underscoring their status as leaders in their fields. Teaching Professor Colleen Craig won a Distinguished Teaching Award. Assistant Professors Alexandra Velian and Dianne Xiao are not slowing down and were recognized with a Sloan Research Fellowship and Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar award, respectively. Professor Xiaosong Li embarks on a new leadership position as associate dean of research for the College of Arts & Sciences as of July 1, 2024. The annual report of fellowships, awards, and honors is listed here.
I hope you enjoy this year’s issue of our magazine and reading about the hard-working, talented and ambitious people I have the pleasure of working with every day. As we build on our accomplishments and tackle new challenges, I invite you to be a part of it. Contact me at chmchair@uw.edu with your input and questions, and do let us know if you’re ever on campus for a visit.
Best wishes,
Munira Khalil
Professor and Chair