Two UA Chemists Win NSF CAREER Awards

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The National Science Foundation selected two University of Alabama chemistry professors for CAREER Awards totaling $1.1 million.

These awards, presented to Drs. Michael Jennings and Timothy Snowden, assistant professors in UA’s department of chemistry, are NSF’s most prestigious recognition of top-performing young scientists and engineers who are beginning their careers.

Jennings’ 5-year, $550,000-award will advance his efforts in developing the next generation of pharmaceuticals using natural substances from the world’s oceans. Development of new reactions and reagents are needed to advance efforts to construct new drugs from such substances, a growing target of pharmaceutical research.

Snowden will use his 5-year, $550,000 award to produce safer, greener, and less expensive methods for combining specific types of compounds with applications in the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries. Present efforts to prepare the classes of compounds in which Snowden is interested generally produce undesirably low yields, involve expensive reagents and require environmentally and occupationally hazardous reaction conditions.

Each award also contains an educational component. Jennings’ provides UA with opportunities to attract high school students from rural Alabama to the lab for research experiences. Snowden’s education plan focuses on increasing interest in chemistry, from both high school students and college freshmen, by exploring the varied roles and applications of chemistry in everyday life and medicine.

NSF established the CAREER program in 1995 to help top performers early in their careers to develop simultaneously their contributions and commitment to research and to education. The CAREER award is courtesy of NSF’s Faculty Early Career Development Program.

According to the NSF Web site, the CAREER program supports the activities of those teacher-scholars who are “most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century.” CAREER award recipients are selected on the basis of creative, career-development plans that effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their institution.

The department of chemistry is part of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the USA Today Academic All-American Teams.