The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) has named Scott Daly of the Department of Chemistry to the honor of Dean’s Scholar for 2020-2022. Dean’s Scholar awards recognize faculty for excellence as evidenced in their promotion record at the time of their candidacy for tenure.

CLAS Dean Steve Goddard congratulated Daly on his accomplishment, noting the positive impact he has on his students, his discipline, and society.

"Professor Daly is a terrific member of our faculty, and I am very pleased to recognize his outstanding work with the Dean's Scholar honor," Goddard said. "His research group provides extraordinary learning opportunities for his students, with impressive results, and his leadership in working with veterans is unique. I thank him for his service and look forward to learning of his future achievements."

Scott Daly joined the University of Iowa Department of Chemistry faculty in 2014. His research group, the Daly Group, uses coordination chemistry to address fundamental questions relevant to electrochemical CO₂ reduction, small molecule transformations and sensing, and nuclear separations. Students in the group learn to characterize new complexes using a wide range of physical and analytical methods that include multi-nuclear NMR spectroscopy, single-crystal X-ray diffraction, mass spectrometry, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and electrochemical methods. The group’s research focuses on development of transition metal complexes with non-innocent ligands, XAS investigations of transition metal complexes with diphosphorus ligands, and lanthanide and actinide coordination chemistry with soft-donor ligands. To date, Professor Daly has supervised the research of eight doctoral candidates. A three-year active Army veteran and M1 Abrams tank crewman, Professor Daly leads an NSF-supported STEM outreach program called the Chemistry Platoon. He earned his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.