Henkel Award for Outstanding Graduate Research in Polymer Science and Engineering

Purpose

The Henkel Award for Outstanding Graduate Research in Polymer Science and Engineering is given to recognize a graduate student or recent graduate who has completed an outstanding Ph.D. thesis in polymeric research.

Nature

The award consists of a plaque and an honorarium of $2,000 which will be presented at the POLY/PMSE award symposium at the fall national ACS meeting. The award also includes travel expenses (up to $1500) to the ACS Meeting to participate in the one-half day symposium to honor the recipient.

History

The award was first awarded in 1991 and is operated under the Polymer Education Committee (POLYED), sponsored by the Polymer Chemistry Division and Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering Division. The award has been previously sponsored by Unilever (1991-2003), National Starch (2006-2008) and AzkoNobel (2008-2013). It has since been sponsored by Henkel.

Eligibility

A nominee must be a member or affiliate of the POLY division of ACS and must currently be a PhD candidate or have earned their PhD during the three years prior or January 1 of the award year.

Nominations

Nominees will be judged on the basis of their contribution to the thesis research, the quality and level of innovation demonstrated, and the impact of the research on the science of synthetic polymers or biopolymers.

Nominators must be a member or affiliate of the POLY division and must be the nominee’s thesis supervisor or someone familiar with the nominee’s work. The nominating document must include: (1) the nominee’s biography (or curriculum vitae), (2) a synopsis of the nominee’s work, and (3) a letter of recommendation from the thesis advisor. Relevant publications based on the thesis work may be submitted. Supporting documents and testimonials may also be included. A PDF file should be sent to Jessica Kramer (jessica.kramer@utah.edu). Please use “Henkel Graduate Award” in the subject line. The nomination email will be acknowledged if received.

About the Sponsor

Henkel values highly the development of outstanding scientists in the field of polymer science and engineering. Progress in the field is vital for the future development of high performance materials that will enhance current technologies and enable future ones. Thus, Henkel is proud to sponsor this award to demonstrate their commitment recognizing outstanding young scientists.

The winner of the 2019 Henkel Award for Outstanding Graduate Research in Polymer Science and Engineering is Dr. Jovan Kamcev. After earning his B.E.’s in Chemical Engineering and Applied Math & Statistics from Stony Brook University in 2012, Kamcev joined the graduate program at the University of Texas–Austin. He earned his Ph.D. in 2016 in Chemical Engineering from the UT-Austin under the supervision of Profs. Benny D. Freeman and Donald R. Paul for combined theoretical and experimental studies of ion and water transport in ion-containing polymer membranes for water and energy applications. Dr. Kamcev is currently is a postdoctoral research associate working with Prof. Jeffrey R. Long in the Department of Chemistry at University of California–Berkeley, where his current research focuses on developing novel porous network polymers for wide-ranging applications, including selective ion removal from aqueous solutions and energy storage.

The 2019 Henkel award will be presented during a symposium in honor of Dr. Kamcev at the American Chemical Society National Meeting in San Diego, CA, August 25–29, 2019 in the ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry. Award nominations are administered through PolyEd, the joint polymer education committee of the ACS Divisions of Polymer Chemistry and Polymeric Materials: Science & Engineering, with generous financial support from the Henkel Corporation

The previous sponsorship of this award by Unilever (1991-2003), National Starch (2006 – 2008), and AzkoNobel (2008-2013) is greatly appreciated.

1991
Christopher Gorman
Advised by: Robert Grubbs, California Institute of Technology

1992
Richard Register
Advised by: Stuart Cooper, University of Wisconsin, Madison

1993
Christopher N. Bowman
Advised by: Nicholas Peppas, Purdue University

1994
Timothy J. Deming
Advised by: Bruce Novak, University of California, Berkeley

1995
Rangaramanujam M. Kannan
Advised by: Julia Kornfield, California Institute of Technology

1996
Kristi S. Anseth
Advised by: Christopher Bowman, University of Colorado at Boulder

1997
D.-Y. Kim
Advised by: Sukant K. Tripathy, University of Massachusetts Lowell

1998
James J. Watkins
Advised by: Thomas J. McCarthy, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

1999
Scott G. Gaynor
Advised by: Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, Carnegie Mellon University

2000
X. Linda Chen
Advised by: Samson A. Jenekhe, University of Rochester

2001
Shu Yang
Advised by: Christopher K. Ober, Cornell University

2002
Kristi Kiick
Advised by: David Tirrell, California Institute of Technology

2003
Christopher Bielawski
Advised by: Robert Grubbs, California Institute of Technology

2006
Jiaxing Huang
Advised by: Richard Kaner, UCLA

2007
Jason Rolland
Advised by: Joseph DiSimone, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

2008
Nikolay Tsarevsky
Advised by: Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, Carnegie Mellon University

2009
Christopher Bettinger
Advised by: Robert Langer, MIT

2010
Haifeng Gao
Advised by: Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, Carnegie Mellon University

2011
Rong Tong
Advised by: Jianjun Cheng, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

2012
Garret Miyake
Advised by: Eugene Chen, Colorado State University

2013
Hua Lu
Advised by: Jianjun Cheng, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

2014
Felix Kim
Advised by: Samson Jenekhe, University of Washington

2015
Jessica Kramer
Advised by: Tim Deming, University of California, Los Angeles

2016
Maxwell Robb
Advised by: Craig Hawker, University of California, Santa Barbara

2017
John. W. Colson
Advised by: William Dichtel, Cornell University

2018
Aleksandr V. Zhukhovitskiy
Advised by: Jeremiah A. Johnson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2019
Dr. Jovan Kamcev
Advised by: Profs. Benny D. Freeman and Donald R. Paul, University of Texas–Austin