Penn chemistry professor inducted into prestigious Cottrell Scholar program

Penn chemist Eric Schelter was recently named as one of 11 researchers to receive the 2024 Cottrell Plus Singular Exceptional Endeavors of Discovery (SEED) Award, a prize that comes with a cash reward of $60,000.

Schelter, who is the Hirschmann-Makineni Professor of Chemistry at the School of Arts and Sciences, was selected by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA), a private foundation that funds research in the physical sciences (astronomy, chemistry, physics, and related fields) at research institutions across the United States and Canada.

His award came under the newly minted New Research Directions category of the Cottrell Scholar program, which recognizes projects that can lead to a transformative line of inquiry. 

Schelter’s work centers on utilizing principles in synthetic inorganic and organometallic chemistry to address problems in the separations of critical metals, including developing new materials with quantum properties and gaining insight into their unique chemical bonding.

New Research Directions was one of two new categories introduced this year, the other being Educational Opportunities. Educational Opportunities aims to recognize and advance research projects at primarily undergraduate institutions to “higher levels of innovation and impact.”

“RCSA had tested two pandemic initiatives that proved extremely helpful to teacher-scholars at PUIs: instrumentation supplements and postbac awards,” Senior Program Director Silvia Ronco said of the new categories in a press release. “Adding a new track with those elements to the SEED Awards is a way for us to extend those successful initiatives and expand opportunities for more Cottrell Scholars excelling in research.”

With this award, Schelter joins a peer scholar community of over 500 members within the Cottrell Scholar program, which has been operating since 1994 to recognize “outstanding teacher-scholars who are recognized by their scientific communities for the quality and innovation of their research programs and their potential for academic leadership.”

These peers include previous Penn awardees Jeffery Saven and Joseph Subotnik, both currently researchers and professors within the Chemistry Department, and Department of Physics and Astronomy professor Bhuvnesh Jain, who also serves as the co-director for both the Penn Center for Particle Cosmology and the Penn Data Driven Discovery Initiative.

Current Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Max Tegmark was also recognized by Cottrell during his time at Penn in the early 2000s for his work in astronomy.

In the past, Schelter has also been named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, received the Anders Gustaf Ekeberg Tantalum Prize, and was awarded the American Chemical Society Inorganic Chemistry Lectureship Award.