Renee Cole and Len MacGillivray elected as Fellows of American Chemical Society

Monday, July 20, 2015

The American Chemical Society (ACS) has announced that Associate Professor Renee Cole and Professor Len MacGillivray of the University of Iowa Department of Chemistry have been elected as ACS Fellows. They will be formally inducted at the society's annual meeting in August in Boston.

Renee ColeRenee Cole earned her doctorate in physical chemistry from the University of Oklahoma in 1998, and joined the UI faculty in 2011. Her research explores issues related to how students learn chemistry and how that guides the design of instructional materials and teaching strategies. Cole has published numerous journal articles and refereed book chapters on chemistry education, and is coeditor of Nuts and bolts of Chemical Education Research (Oxford University Press, 2007). She leads the Cole Research Group, whose mission is to develop a better understanding of teaching and learning in chemistry.

Len MacGillivrayLeonard R. "Len" MacGillivray earned the PhD in chemistry from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1998, and joined the UI faculty in 2000. Leader of the MacGillivray Research Group, his research is in the field of supramolecular chemistry—an area that bridges chemistry, physics, and biology through exploiting noncovalent bonds—as related to organic solids. An author of many journal articles, he has organized numerous conferences, symposia, and sessions, and serves as chair of the Editorial Board of CrystEngComm, a journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, as well as associate editor of Journal of Coordination Chemistry. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Royal Chemistry Society, was recipient of a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, and has been named a Dean's Scholar and Collegiate Scholar by the UI College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

Cole and MacGillivray join four other members of the Department of Chemistry as ACS Fellows. The ACS Fellows Program was created to recognize members of ACS for outstanding achievements in and contributions to science, the profession, and the ACS.

The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers about 70 majors across the humanities; fine, performing and literary arts; natural and mathematical sciences; social and behavioral sciences; and communication disciplines. About 15,000 undergraduate and nearly 2,000 graduate students study each year in the college’s 37 departments, led by faculty at the forefront of teaching and research in their disciplines. The college teaches all Iowa undergraduates through the college's general education program, CLAS CORE. About 80 percent of all Iowa undergraduates begin their academic journey in CLAS. The college confers about 60 percent of the university's bachelor's degrees each academic year.