News

The Department of Chemistry is proud to recognize Joe Lutkenhaus ('69 Chemistry) as the recipient of the 2026 Outstanding Alumni Award.

Kirill Kovnir was elected to the Advanced Photon Source Users' Executive Committee (APS UEC) at Argonne National Laboratory.

Read More Here: https://www.aps.anl.gov/About/Committees/APS-Users-Organization 

Muhammad Azhan, a Ph.D. candidate in Prof. Kirill Kovnir’s research group, received the Gold Award at the ACS Fall 2026 meeting in Chicago.

Congratulations to Kajol Tonk, graduate student in Professor Aaron Sadow’s group, for receiving the Best Oral Presentation award at the 2026 Great Plains Catalysis Society Symposium!

Congratulations go out to Professor Davit Potoyan for being selected to join the Editorial Board of the Biophysical Journal!

https://www.cell.com/biophysj/home 

Congratulations to the following faculty members on their LAS Awards!

Mason Koeritz:  LAS Award for Early Achievement in Teaching

We are pleased to announce that Professor Kirill Kovnir has been awarded the ACS Qnity Electronics Solid State Chemistry Award, to be presented at the ACS Fall 2026 Meeting.

Congratulations to Shashini De Silva, Ph.D. candidate, on receiving the 2026 Chinese American Chromatography Association (CACA) Student Excellence Award!

Joselyn Chavarria, a high school student, completed a chemistry internship during the summer of 2024 as part of the ACS Project SEED program in the Kovnir research group.

🎉 Congratulations to Ph.D. student Micke Reynders! 🎉

Micke was named a winner of the Student Research Competition in the Educate, Communicate, and Translate topic area at Pacifichem 2025.

Kirill Kovnir has been elected to serve a three-year term on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory SNS-HFIR User Group (SHUG) Executive Committee. 

In early October, the Chemical Instrumentation Facility completed the installation of an AVIIIHD300 nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer and autosampler, located in 1702 Gilman Hall.

Ames, Iowa — Nov.