The American Chemical Society Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Division (I&EC) has named the recipients of its Fellow and Early-Career Fellow Awards for the 2024, 2025, and 2026 cycles—a total of nine honorees. The division has been naming fellows since 2007 to recognize people who have made significant contributions to industrial and engineering chemistry through research, innovation, education, leadership, or service.
The division was unable to complete its selection process in 2024 or 2025 and saw it important to revive the awards and acknowledge the missed years as soon as possible. “When I became chair of the division, [on Jan. 1, fulfilling these awards] was my first priority,” said De-en Jiang, current I&EC chair and chemistry professor at Vanderbilt University. The awards provide a great path for the division to recognize excellence in the field. “For the young scientists, for the early-career ones, it helps to get them inspired,” said Jihua Chen, an I&EC member, and having something to strive toward can help motivate them.
A group effort from division members restored the awards. Members offered nominations and review. Jiang specially thanks this year’s division awards committee chair Zhenzhen Yang for her efforts, “she really did a good job keeping everyone busy.” ACS divisions all function around volunteer efforts from people who balance their contributions with day jobs and other life events, so not letting something like this lapse for too long, and riding the momentum to get things done is important.
Being chair is a big job that requires prioritization—some years more than others—and Jiang says it’s only possible with strong support from within the division, which has members with more than 40 years of service available to offer advice and knowledge, and others available to solve technical issues like dealing with websites. ACS members have a chance to contribute, to practice soft skills and hard skills, and network through divisions such as I&EC. “Our division has the right combination of engineering, chemistry, and industry,” says Jiang. “We’re the division for chemists who want to go into industry.” There are other ACS divisions focused around oil, gas, energy, and materials, but Jiang says that for young people interested in industry in general, I&EC does have leadership from places like Dow and other companies that might be of interest to them when it comes to exploring industrial careers.
The 2024–26 I&EC Division Fellows are as follows:
Class of 2026: Rigoberto Advincula, Governor’s Chair Professor, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee; and Larry R. Dalton, professor emeritus of chemistry, University of Washington
Class of 2025: Laëtitia Delmau, Distinguished R&D Staff member and radiochemist, Oak Ridge National Laboratory; and De-en Jiang, professor of chemistry, Vanderbilt University
Class of 2024: Alan M. Allgeier, Don W. Green Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Kansas; and Erich Molitor, R&D fellow, Engineering and Process Science, Dow.
The 2024–26 I&EC Division Early-Career Fellows are as follows:
Class of 2026: Bin Ouyang, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Florida State University
Class of 2025: Kai Li, R&D staff at Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Class of 2024: Shize Yang, director, Aberration-Corrected Electron Microscopy Core at Yale University
These awardees will be formally recognized at the ACS I&EC Division Awards Symposium and Ceremony to be held during ACS Spring 2027 in New Orleans.
