UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Alex Radosevich, an assistant professor of chemistry at Penn State, has been honored with a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The CAREER award is the most prestigious award given by the NSF in support of junior faculty members who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent teaching, and the integration of education and research. The CAREER award provides five years of funding and is given to assistant professors by NSF directorates at different times during the year.
The primary focus of Alex Radosevich's research is to develop more efficient chemical reactions that reduce the environmental impact of chemical production. The methods developed in Radosevich's laboratory can be applied to a range of areas, from pharmaceutical synthesis to fuel production. To identify these new approaches, Radosevich designs special compounds called redox catalysts that accelerate the rate of a chemical reaction by controlling electron gain or loss.
Before becoming a faculty member in Penn State's Eberly College of Science, Radosevich was a postdoctoral fellow in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Department of Chemistry. He also taught several courses in organic chemistry at the University of California, Berkley.
Radosevich has published papers in many peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of American Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, and the Journal of Organic Chemistry. He has presented his research at many national and international conferences.
Radosevich received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 2007. He earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Notre Dame in 2002.