Younger Chemists Committee celebrates 50 years: Member perspectives

These profiles are part of a two-part series celebrating the Younger Chemists Committee (YCC) 50-year anniversary. The first part of this series was published in the Nov. 18 issue of C&EN under the title “Younger Chemists Committee celebrates 50 years.”

The interviews in this part of the series included questions about the member’s career paths, challenges in their careers, what they’ve gotten out of being a part of YCC, what they foresee as big issues for YCC to be involved with in the next 50 years, and advice for future members.

These profiles have been edited for length and clarity.

Profile: Sagar Bhattacharya

Sagar Bhattacharya is a postdoctoral scholar studying under William DeGrado in the DeGrado Lab at the University of California, San Francisco, where he is carrying out research on protein design and catalysis and biomedical applications.

Bhattacharya earned his PhD from Syracuse University, where he focused on biological chemistry, including protein engineering, peptide engineering, and directed evolution. His career goal is to develop successful antimicrobial or anticancer proteins. “Currently, a lot of different types of peptides like an anticancer peptide exist, but they often don’t go to clinic, because while they show promise, once they reach Phase 1 or Phase 2 of a clinical trial, they show severe toxicity,” says Bhattacharya. In response to that, Bhattacharya hopes to design a protein that can mask the toxicity of the peptide drug and reduce side effects. If successful, ideally, he can help a lot of different peptides that are currently stuck in the clinical trial phase proceed further.

When Bhattacharya isn’t doing research, he enjoys reading, though he often finds himself drawn to research articles because of his interest in his work. “It’s important to get some really nice ideas, like to what other people have done or are doing,” Bhattacharya says. “Because that might give me some ideas, and I can make my next project pathway.”

He plays chess occasionally too, saying it’s like a puzzle that makes players think ahead in order to make proactive moves, which he also connects to his research: “It helps with thinking about specific experiments, and if you have an alternative plan for how to do it if needed.”

In graduate school, Bhattacharya started thinking more deeply about his skills. “Nowadays, the way things are moving forward, I feel like it’s not only about the research, because a lot of people are doing research.” He realized you can do so much more with chemistry than strictly sticking to academia—such as industry, law, or marketing. “A lot of people probably are unaware of that fact, but I think the important skills are about not only the research but also the leadership quality. That’s what makes you different compared to your peers.”

Bhattacharya joined his local section of the American Chemistry Society and started volunteering by doing activities like lake cleanups and experiments with kids at the zoo; at the time, his local section didn’t have a Younger Chemists group. He continued to get more deeply involved, getting elected to a delegate-at-large position representing his district. In 2022, he was selected to attend the younger leader track at the ACS Leadership Institute, where he met a lot of the Younger Chemists Committee executive board members. “They were all really amazing,” Battacharya says. “I made the decision that, once I am done with my PhD, I am definitely going to go for the YCC executive board.”

For Bhattacharya, getting involved in his local section and attending the Leadership Institute were the major entry points to his involvement in YCC.

At this point in his career journey, Bhattacharya is motivated toward academia and plans to apply for tenure-track assistant-professor positions once he’s close to finishing his postdoctoral studies. He has two big challenges: the first is getting a job and the second is funding.

“They give you a lot of experience,” Bhattacharya says of postdoctoral fellowships. “And once you have that postdoctoral funding, you know what the procedures are and how to secure a grant.”

“Honestly, it doesn’t matter if you’re doing a PhD or postdoc, you’re learning a lot of things,” says Bhattacharya. “You’re doing experiments and projects, mentoring, and more. And we try to learn management, but there are a lot of things you don’t learn before you go to your independent positions.” He says the challenge comes when you start; you’ll be writing grants, writing papers, mentoring students, attending conferences, and teaching.

“Younger Chemist groups and the leadership programs are very critical because they will mentally prepare you,” says Bhattacharya. “How to handle this many people, this many problems, and how to get the most out of them.”

Another benefit Bhattacharya has gotten out of YCC is meeting people from different backgrounds doing things different from what he does. “Thinking about my position right now as a postdoc, there are a lot of other postdocs or graduate students, and I’m not saying we’re working on the same project, but similar types of projects, so when we talk to each other, we often say this is the problem and this is how we’d normally solve the problem,” Bhattacharya says. “But what about different ways to solve the problem, or better ways to solve the problem?” If he’s spending 10 h a day in his postdoctoral laboratory, he says he doesn’t have the time to meet people who aren’t in academia—like the forensic scientist, policy fellow, or marketer. Spending time with the YCC, however, offers him a space to interact with those people.

“It’s easy to get caught up in our own hardships and difficulties, but when you sit and listen to people in other places, they can help you learn a lot, which can give you perspective of what types of challenges are in other places,” Bhattacharya says.

When looking ahead to the coming 50 years, Bhattacharya thinks burnout and depression- related challenges will be big to address. “I can’t tell you what happened 30 years ago, but I personally feel over the past 50 years there are many things that have changed, and in academia or industry, it can be very stressful,” Bhattacharya says. “I think we’re seeing more cases of burnout, and it’s not just an ACS or YCC problem, it’s a general problem in society today.” As current YCC leaders’ terms come to an end, he thinks it’ll be a critical job for new members, like himself, to think about how to help address these new challenges.

Profile: Bhavya Singhi

Bhavya Singhi is a research engineer at Zeus Industrial Products in South Carolina. She graduated with a PhD in fiber and polymer science from North Carolina State University (NC State).

Singhi’s career path is self-described as more nontraditional. After high school, she went to the Institute of Chemical Technology, which specializes in chemistry and chemical-based courses. “The most traditional degree program was probably chemical engineering. Everything else was more specialized, such as degrees in polymers, pharmaceuticals, oils, and other chemicals,” says Singhi.

For undergraduate schooling, she started out in the department of textile chemistry, where she learned about textile process, fiber processing, and the chemicals used and steps involved in the creation of various textiles. One of the specialities she was particularly drawn to was medical textiles. She found a master’s program at NC State in textile chemistry and was able to specialize in medical textiles for her graduate studies. This involved working with biopolymers for medical textile applications.

Singhi continued her education by pursuing a PhD in fiber and polymer science. After finishing her PhD, she went into industry, joining Zeus. There she works with polymers for medical applications, specifically with medical tubing, which can be used in things like diagnostic and surgical catheters.

When Singhi isn’t working with polymers, she enjoys going to the movie theater or catching up on television series at home. She has a crafty side too, and enjoys doing do-it-yourself projects and paint-by-number kits.

Singhi first joined the American Chemical Society in 2020 as part of its Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering. She got more involved in volunteering by working some events specific to graduate students. She has served on the Younger Chemists Committee since 2022.

Singhi was a part of a lot of graduate student associations at NC State, which she really enjoyed, especially for social networking. When she started working full time in a smaller city, she realized she really missed that aspect of her life. This led her to become an ACS member and to start looking for ways to volunteer.

As part of the ACS Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering, Singhi served on a subcommittee that focused on professional development for younger people, which then led to her participating in web panels where she gave career advice to undergraduate and graduate students, and from there she learned about the YCC.

A challenge for Singhi in her career journey was transitioning from academia to industry.

“In grad school, not a lot of people talk about what it is to work in industry because most people you interact with, at either conferences or seminars or anything, it’s either other grad students or people working in academia,” Singhi says. “So you always hear stories about how difficult it is to get a job in academia, but rarely do you get to meet the people I now interact with, people who work in industry.”

The other challenge she faced was moving to a small town in rural South Carolina from Raleigh—which was an adjustment. The company she would be working for was also smaller, meaning the business structure was a little bit different from that of some bigger or more corporate companies. “One of the big things about being part of YCC has been a sense of community,” says Singhi, “interacting with other people my age who’ve been in the same situation as me or are currently in the same situation as me.”

When Singhi joined her company, there weren’t a lot of people her age. She was the youngest person on her team, with everyone else being close to 10-plus years older. “So, there’s a bit of a disconnect,” she explains. “It’s nice to get to interact with people in my field in a similar age group.”

Looking ahead to the next 50 years, Singhi hopes to see the YCC address getting more participation from younger people, in the ACS but also in academia, in industry, in government, and other places.

“I’ve constantly heard that ACS wants more participation from younger people, younger scientists, younger people in industry, across all divisions, committees, and such,” Singhi says. “I hope going forward, as ACS updates or changes some of their meeting structures and how conferences are held, that it will foster more collaboration between different divisions and committees, and ultimately provide more opportunities for younger chemists to actually present their work and get more exposure to that.”

Singhi’s advice for newcomers or those interested in joining a committee is “not to get overwhelmed by the number of subcommittees and different jargon everybody uses,” she says. “It takes a few months to at least kind of understand everything that is going on. It took me a while to even remember everybody’s names.” She also encourages exploring subcommittees, and taking the time to attend a few meetings and find that special interest that you’re passionate about.

Profile: Alex Goranov

Alex Goranov is a postdoctoral researcher in analytical chemistry at Old Dominion University.

Goranov is a classically trained chemist, holding both a bachelor’s degree and PhD in chemistry. He grew up in Bulgaria, where high schools have majors; he chose to specialize in science and mathematics.

Goranov’s current career is primarily research based. He applies his work in analytical chemistry to study questions and problems involving the environment. Currently, he is researching how molecular processes transform the environment. Some of his specific work has involved wildfires and photochemistry, which involves looking at how sunlight affects molecules in rivers or swamps and changes their composition and properties. He also spends some time mentoring graduate students.

When Goranov isn’t looking at molecules, he likes to “travel a lot,” he laughs as he participates in this C&EN interview from his car.

“I’m happy that my job doesn’t have traditional hours,” says Goranov. “When I am in town, I work a lot, and I work a lot ahead of time. So then I can travel a lot.” For Goranov, traveling encompasses trying new foods, exploring new cultures, meeting people, visiting new bars and stores, and sightseeing. He also parktakes in line dancing. “A lot, excessively, like four nights a week,” he says. “I have like four pairs of cowboy boots in my trunk.”

Goranov has been an American Chemical Society member since day one of his undergraduate studies. “The moment I came to the United States, I came here for college, first semester, first week of classes, one of my professors said ‘ACS,’ and I signed up,” he says.

From there, Goranov started going to conferences. He already loves volunteering, so he signed up to volunteer for the undergraduate programs, which landed him on the ACS Undergraduate Student Advisory Board (USAB). There, he learned about the Younger Chemists Committee and applied through the ACS committee preference form after his USAB term ended.

Starting out in his career, the challenging part for Goranov wasn’t the science. “It was the nonscience,” he says. “It was the stuff that we don’t learn in our degrees: public speaking, working with leaders in our institutions, navigating the hierarchy of things. Like, if I have an issue or even want to say thank you to someone—where do I go?”

“I know how to do an experiment at the bench, and write a lab report—we learned that very well at school—but then our jobs are so much more than that,” Goranov says. And the hardest part of that is that the “so much more than that” parts show up unexpectedly, “Like someone sends me a budget request and I’m like, ‘How do I do this budget?’ ”

Twelve years into his career, Goranov says that navigating things like unexpected budgets have gotten easier. But he remembers in the beginning it was learn as you go, because you had to. “I was stressed often, like if I had to email a vice president with something, it just takes way more time than anyone ever tells you—which is something you need to learn to budget as well,” Goranov says.

Goranov wants to stay in academia, do research, and teach, but he admits that about 30% of his job is none of those things—it’s also emails and paperwork orders. He describes some methods of self-learning he undertook before getting involved with YCC: “It’s necessary, but sometimes you’re learning to do it by searching on YouTube, it’s almost like figuring out how to do your taxes without having a parent teach you.”

Being a part of YCC helped Goranov find other committees, like the Committee on Nomenclature, Terminology, and Symbols, which helped him improve soft skills like public speaking, working with leaders, and organizing. YCC has also helped him expand his perspective on people. “As an academic, I have a pretty narrow view of the world,” Goranov says. “And there’s people in government, there’s people in industry, there’s people in the private sector, and people that aren’t scientists at all, and they’re part of ACS for all kinds of reasons.”

Goranov gets to work with these people through ACS and its committees. They all have different types of successes they can share, and they also experience different types of challenges. Some that you might not even realize is a challenge until you talk to someone else in a different sector. “A person in government will have very different problems than my problems in academia,” he says.

Goranov would have sought out volunteer opportunities whether they were with YCC or not. When he volunteers with YCC, though, the committee helps him as much as he’s helping them. “I get to meet people, and we have a little fun, and we really make impactful things, which makes me happy,” Goranov says.

A challenge Goranov foresees YCC needing to address in the next 50 years is artificial intelligence. He believes that is becoming more pressing, giving the example “Someone can write a paper with it.” He’s written papers throughout his career, saying he knows how to write a good one through practice. But someone starting out in graduate school who is still learning, they might find artificial intelligence very enticing, and who is to say they can learn to write a good paper in the same way.

YCC will always focus on soft and leadership skills and advice on how to get a job in a certain sector, but Goranov thinks at some point the committee may need to come up with guidelines around how to use artificial intelligence responsibly, specifically as a young professional, “in a way that we, as people, are still being valued, and so we don’t become redundant,” Goranov says, and suggests that maybe that comes in the form of a workshop or special activities.

For those who are new to the committee or ACS, Goranov’s advice is to “jump right into it.”

“Don’t be afraid. No one will judge you if you don’t know an acronym or how to do some sort of operation,” Goranov says. He says volunteering for tasks and championing initiatives is the best way to get involved.

Goranov also says not to get discouraged if you don’t get selected for the YCC the first time you fill out a committee preference form. “If you don’t get on YCC, you should still try volunteering for other committees or divisions. There might be a task force or something related to younger chemists.”