Women Chemists Committee honors award winners

The American Chemical Society’s Women Chemists Committee (WCC) honored several awardees during the ACS Fall 2022 meeting in Chicago.

The 2022 Overcoming Challenges Award was presented to Riley Atrops, a recent graduate from California State University Channel Islands. This award is given to undergraduate women chemistry students who have overcome significant obstacles in their pursuit of success in the field of chemistry. Atrops survived a serious automobile accident when she was a child and was diagnosed with a tumor as an undergraduate.

The 2022 Merck Research Award, sponsored by Merck & Co, was awarded to eight third- and fourth-year women graduate students. The recipients are Maria Aguilera, University of Rochester; Maria Adrover Castellano, University of Michigan; Sara Dibrell, California Institute of Technology; Olivia Garry, Princeton University; Zhuojun Huang, Stanford University; Irene Manning, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Alena Vasquez, Scripps Research; and Xizi Zhang, University of California, Berkeley.

The 2022 Priscilla Carney Jones Scholarship was awarded to Crystal Mendoza, a rising senior majoring in chemistry at Kalamazoo College. Mendoza is currently participating in the RISE Germany internship in Karlsruhe working on photocatalysts for carbon dioxide reduction. Paul R. Jones established this scholarship in memory of his wife who faced difficulties as a woman chemist early in her career.

For more information on WCC awards visit www.acswcc.org.