Chemistry Professor Shuming Chen Receives $550,000 NSF Award

Provided over five years, support fuels ongoing faculty-student research as well as education-access initiatives.

April 25, 2024

Communications Staff

Shuming Chen working with a student in a chemistry lab.
Professor Shuming Chen (left) works with a student in Oberlin’s chemistry labs. A newly secured grant from the National Science Foundation will support ongoing student research opportunities and initiatives that support access to STEM education.
Photo credit: Mike Crupi

Shuming Chen, an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Oberlin College, has received a prestigious NSF CAREER award from the National Science Foundation. The award will provide $550,000 in support of the integration of research and education over a five-year period for Chen’s project, “Understanding and Directing Selectivity in Functionalizations of Strong Covalent Bonds Utilizing Coordination-Sphere Effects.”

NSF CAREER is the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious program for early-career faculty. It is awarded to junior teacher-scholars “who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.”

Chen completed a PhD at Yale University in 2016 and has been a member of the Oberlin faculty since 2020.

The CAREER program is highly competitive, and proposals come from both research universities and primarily undergraduate institutions. As a result, it is unusual for a faculty member at a liberal arts college to receive a CAREER award. “Shuming’s receiving this award illustrates the caliber of research that goes on in her lab and that is possible at Oberlin,” says professor Catherine Oertel, chair of the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department.

It is an immense honor and a wonderful springboard into the future for my lab,” Chen says of the award. “It enables us to do what we are passionate about: involving more students in the incredibly empowering act of creating new knowledge.

Shuming Chen
Shuming Chen (photo by Mike Crupi)

In her CAREER-funded project, Chen and her students will use computational models to help understand and steer selectivity in transition-metal-catalyzed reactions that can yield usefully functionalized compounds with potential as pharmaceutical drug candidates, as well as other applications.

In addition, the project includes initiatives intended to foster involvement in science research among students from underrepresented backgrounds, bolstering Oberlin’s deep commitment to increasing access to STEM education.

As with most faculty labs at Oberlin, Chen’s research involves substantial student participation. The NSF CAREER award will allow for the contributions of an even greater number of students and support wages for students conducting summer and academic-year research. It will also fund the creation of a workshop that enables Oberlin’s first-year chemistry and biochemistry students to engage in authentic research.

“It is an immense honor and a wonderful springboard into the future for my lab,” says Chen. “Oberlin’s chemistry and biochemistry faculty have an extremely strong track record for securing competitive grants and awards. It enables us to do what we are passionate about: involving more students in the incredibly empowering act of creating new knowledge.”

Learn more about the award on the NSF website.

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