Chemist Eric Schelter Wins 2024 Cottrell SEED Award

Eric Schelter, Hirschmann-Makineni Professor of Chemistry

Eric Schelter, Hirschmann-Makineni Professor of Chemistry, is one of 11 researchers selected by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement to receive its Cottrell Plus SEED (Singular Exceptional Endeavors of Discovery) Awards for 2024. Each award is $60,000.

The competitive Cottrell SEED Award is designed to support members of the Cottrell Scholar community in high-impact research activities. This year, RCSA expanded SEED Awards to include two categories: New Research Directions and Exceptional Opportunities. Shelter’s award was for New Research Directions, which supports innovative research projects with potential to lead to a transformative line of inquiry. Schelter’s SEED project is New Directions for Sustainable Separations of Battery Materials.

Schelter’s research focuses mostly in synthetic inorganic and organometallic chemistry to address problems in critical metals separations, develop new materials with quantum properties, understand the roles of f-elements in biology, and gain insight into their unique chemical bonding. Among his many honors, he has been named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, received the American Chemical Society Inorganic Chemistry Lectureship Award and the Anders Gustaf Ekeberg Tantalum Prize, and served as an editorial advisory board member on the American Chemical Society journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering.

Since 1994, the Cottrell Scholar program has honored and helped to develop 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.

Research Corporation for Science Advancement is a private foundation that funds basic research in the physical sciences (astronomy, chemistry, physics, and related fields) at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.

 

Arts & Sciences News

1 / 2
Fourteen from Penn Arts & Sciences Receive Fulbrights for 2025-26 Academic Year

They will conduct research, pursue graduate degrees, or teach English in places including Thailand, Austria, Indonesia, Moldova, and many other places.

View Article >
Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw Named James and Nan Wagner Farquhar Professor of History of Art

Shaw’s main areas of research include portraiture and issues of representation in the art of the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean, from the 1500s to the present day.

View Article >
Hanming Fang Named Inaugural Norman C. Grosman Professor of Economics

An applied microeconomist who integrates rigorous modeling with data analysis, Fang’s research within the field of public economics focuses on health insurance and healthcare markets.

View Article >
Xi Song Named Inaugural Schiffman Family Presidential Associate Professor of Sociology

Song’s research interests include social mobility, occupations, Asian Americans, population studies, and quantitative methodology.

View Article >
Julie Nelson Davis Named Paul F. Miller, Jr. and E. Warren Shafer Miller Professor of History of Art

Davis specializes in the arts and material cultures of 18th- and 19th-century Japan, with a focus on prints, paintings, and illustrated books.

View Article >
Justin Khoury Named Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Physics and Astronomy

Khoury’s research interests lie at the intersection of particle physics and cosmology.

View Article >