July 12, 2010

UCSB Chemistry Professor Receives Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award

Song-I Han, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UC Santa Barbara, has received a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award. She is one of 14 recipients from universities across the United States. The award, which supports the teaching and research of talented young faculty members in the chemical sciences, is presented by The Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation.

The award consists of a $75,000 research grant, which will help support the innovative work of Han's group in unraveling the role of hydration water dynamics in protein interaction and function. "This award is of particular significance to me because more conventional research grants might not fund an effort such as ours at this early stage," she said. "Our methodology has yet to be established and broadly disseminated, and is thus considered high risk-high impact. Also, we aim to establish a general approach rather than resolve a specific research hypothesis."

The Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards Program supports faculty members at an early stage in their careers. Criteria for selection include an independent body of scholarship attained within the first five years of their appointment as independent researchers, and a demonstrated commitment to education, both of which signal the promise of continuing outstanding contributions to both research and teaching.

The program is open to academic institutions in the United States, Districts, and Territories of the United States of America that grant a bachelor's or graduate degree in the chemical sciences, including biochemistry, materials chemistry, and chemical engineering. Recipients are selected from departments that feature doctoral programs, and in which scholarly research is a principal activity.

A specialist in physical chemistry and biophysics, Han received her doctoral degree in Natural Sciences from Aachen University of Technology in Germany in 2001. She was awarded the first Raymond Andrew Prize of the Ampere Society and Borchers Plakette of the Aachen University of Technology for an outstanding Ph.D. thesis on magnetic resonance. She pursued postdoctoral studies at the Max-Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Germany and at UC Berkeley.

Han has received numerous others honors and awards, including the Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award, the National Science Foundation Early Career Development Award, and the William M. Keck Award for Science and Technology.

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