Kent Voorhees Receives Outstanding Faculty Award

Kent J. Voorhees, professor of chemistry and geochemistry at Colorado School of Mines, has been named the recipient of the university’s 2013 Board of Trustees Outstanding Faculty Award. The award recognizes faculty members who have made a significant positive impact on student learning, with an emphasis on those who teach outside the classroom.

Since Voorhees began teaching at Colorado School of Mines in 1979, he has mentored 20 doctoral students and 14 master’s students, as well as many undergraduates. In addition, he has mentored 16 postdocs from both the U.S. and abroad.

One of Voorhees’ former doctoral students noted in his nomination letter that Voorhees’ “contacts with the world outside of academia are instrumental in providing an exciting and meaningful environment for his students.”

Voorhees serves as a director-at-large on the American Chemical Society Board of Directors. He also chairs the ACS Green Chemistry Institute Governing Board and was instrumental in bringing the ACS Summer School on Green Chemistry & Sustainable Energy to Colorado School of Mines.

His microbial research has led to two start-up companies that are using mass spectrometry to identify bacteria.