University of Rochester Chemist Receives Sloan Fellowship

A chemist at the University of Rochester has been awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation research fellowship. Guillermo Bazan, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, is one of 100 award recipients who will receive $35,000 toward their research programs over the next two years.

Bazan is an expert on polymers, long-chain molecules that form the heart of the multi-billion-dollar plastics industry. He is developing new methods to make catalysts, chemicals that control and accelerate the assembly of polymers from smaller building blocks. He does much of this work with researchers from Kodak and Xerox at the University's Center for Photo-Induced Charge Transfer.

"Gui has added a new direction to our department's research program," says David G. Whitten, department chair. "He has brought us into materials research, a direction that chemistry must pursue. In a very short time he has become a leader in our department."

Bazan is a graduate of the University of Ottawa and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since joining the University faculty in 1992 he has also received a new faculty award from the Dreyfus Foundation and a career development award from the National Science Foundation.

Sloan fellowships are designed to fund young scholars in the early stages of their careers. The foundation has given more than $72 million to 3,100 researchers since the program began in 1955.

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