Dr. Quentin Michaudel, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at Texas A&M University, has been selected to receive a 2024 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award recognizing early-career faculty for their outstanding independent body of scholarship and deep commitment to education.
Michaudel is one of 18 scientists chosen for the 2024 honor, bestowed by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation each year since 1970 to strengthen the careers of outstanding young chemistry faculty who show promise in research and teaching. The program was designed to provide discretionary funding to deserving faculty at the early stages of their careers.
Each Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar receives an unrestricted research grant of $100,000. Michaudel plans to use his to harness new methods of reactivity for the precise synthesis of polymers with tailored properties.
“I am grateful to the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation for this award, to my incredibly supportive mentors and partner, and especially to my students and postdocs whose unwavering dedication and passion to science make our research possible and my job fun,” Michaudel said.
Michaudel, whose expertise lies at the interface of organic chemistry, catalysis and polymer science, joined the Texas A&M Chemistry faculty in 2018 and also holds a joint appointment in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He is the most recent faculty member to earn a Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award while at Texas A&M since 2008, when chemical engineer Dr. Victor Ugaz was selected. In addition to Ugaz, Michaudel joins six of his fellow chemists — Dr. Paul S. Cremer (2003), Dr. Daniel Romo (1999), Dr. Jeffery Kelly (1994), Dr. Robert R. Lucchese (1988), Dr. Martin Newcomb (1980) and Dr. Patrick S. Mariano (1975) — in receiving the honor during their time at Texas A&M.
Dr. Simon W. North, John W. Bevan Professor of Chemistry and head of Texas A&M Chemistry, notes the department has also been successful in recruiting faculty recognized as Dreyfus Teacher-Scholars prior to joining the Texas A&M faculty, including current chemists Dr. Osvaldo Gutierrez (2021), Dr. Alison Fout (2017), Dr. Oleg Ozerov (2007), Dr. Kim Dunbar (1990) and Dr. John Gladysz (1980).
“I am delighted that Quentin has been selected as a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, which recognizes excellence both teaching and research," North said. "He is rising star in his field who also is a wonderful teacher in the classroom.”
A native of La Rochelle, France, Michaudel earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 2015 from The Scripps Research Institute, where he was partially funded by a Bristol-Myers Squibb Graduate Fellowship in Synthetic Organic Chemistry. Prior to beginning his independent career at Texas A&M, he completed a three-year postdoctoral research fellowship at Cornell University, during which he developed photocatalytic systems to enable control over polymer architectures through light irradiation and also worked on the synthesis of sustainable polymers from biorenewable monomers.
At Texas A&M, Michaudel has launched an aggressive and innovative scholarly research and teaching program that harnesses exquisite expertise in synthetic organic chemistry with applications in several diverse directions, each representing innovative approaches to the advancement of synthetic chemistry transformations that allow for the design, synthesis and study of functional small molecules and macromolecular materials. His excellence in scholarly research and teaching has been recognized by several highly prestigious awards, including a 2022 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, a 2022 American Chemical Society Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering (PMSE) Young Investigator Award, a 2021 Thieme Chemistry Journals Award and a 2020 National Institutes of Health Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA).
I am grateful to the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation for this award, to my incredibly supportive mentors and partner, and especially to my students and postdocs whose unwavering dedication and passion to science make our research possible and my job fun.
Michaudel’s evaluations to date from both students and peer faculty provide ample testament to his innovation, organization, motivation and effectiveness as an inspirational teacher. His nominator, Texas A&M Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and 2020 National Academy of Sciences member Dr. Karen L. Wooley, describes his pedagogical contributions as both outstanding and innovative, as evidenced by his selection as a 2021 Montague-Center for Teaching Excellence Scholar and most recently as one of only three pre-tenure assistant professors to earn an inaugural College of Arts and Sciences Early Career Teaching Award in 2023.
“Quentin is one of an emerging generation of scholars whose qualifications are based on a deep foundational knowledge in advanced organic synthesis that is applied in creative ways to the design and development of completely new classes of functional materials,” Wooley added. “He is a scholar who represents an outstanding and preeminent addition to the highly distinguished cohort of Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholars, based upon his past excellence in research and teaching, his creativity and his future promise to translate fundamental chemistry advances toward the development of synthetic methods by which to access novel materials that impact society.”
Wooley says a common theme in Michaudel’s research has been his exquisite pursuit of in-depth mechanistic studies of reactive intermediates and catalytic processes that challenge fundamental molecular understanding and artistically produce selective chemical transformations for small molecules and polymer structures. Already in his early independent career, he has made significant advances in the development and utilization of stereoselective olefin metathesis to design soft materials with customizable properties as well as in sulfur fluoride exchange (SuFEx) chemistry, a modular, next-generation family of click reactions geared toward the rapid and reliable assembly of functional molecules with application in nearly all areas of modern chemistry, from drug discovery to materials science.
"Quentin is leading a new generation of researchers in the design of novel functional polymers that are needed to solve significant societal issues such as sustainability and low-power, organic electronics,” said Dr. Craig J. Hawker, Alan and Ruth Heeger Chair in Interdisciplinary Science and Clarke Professor in the California Nanosystems Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "With his 2023 Early Career Teaching Award, Quentin epitomizes the world-class qualities required for being named a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar — the ability to inspire and communicate to the next generation of students the importance of chemical research. I am very excited to see Quentin continue Texas A&M’s rich and successful tradition in materials chemistry and polymer science."
The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation was established in 1946 to advance the science of chemistry, chemical engineering and related sciences as a means of improving human relations and circumstances throughout the world. For nearly eight decades, the Foundation has sought to take the lead in identifying and addressing needs and opportunities in the chemical sciences through a series of programs and awards aimed at supporting young faculty accomplished in both research and teaching, furthering the applications of machine learning, recognizing exceptional and original research that has advanced the field with the Dreyfus Prize, and funding lectureships at primarily undergraduate institutions.
For additional information about Michaudel’s research, visit https://www.michaudellab.org/.