OU professor honored for excellence in chemistry

A University of Oklahoma professor has been selected as a 2010 American Chemical Society Fellow—a distinguished group of chemists honored for contributions in chemistry in either academia, government or industry.

Donna Nelson, professor in the OU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, will be honored during a special ceremony at the ACS National Meeting in Boston on August 23. The 2010 Class of Fellows is only the second group of chemists to be honored for contributions to the chemical sciences and outstanding service to the society.

"The national recognition Donna Nelson has received as a result of her selection as an ACS Fellow is indicative of her outstanding stature as a chemist, her research, and her service to the society and to the profession of chemistry," according to Elizabeth Ann Nalley, 2009 ACS Fellow, Cameron University.

Nalley says Nelson overcame many obstacles and, in conducting her research on minorities in academe, demonstrated the poor representation of minorities on the faculties of research universities in the United States. As an organic chemist, Nelson is functionalizing and characterizing single-walled carbon nanotubes in ways that have not been done before.

"It is typical for applications of a new compound to precede its full characterization; there is no point in spending the time and resources to fully identify all characteristics of a compound unless it will be of some use. Now, a wide variety of new applications of single-walled carbon nanotubes have been established, and the promise of additional developments is obvious. Therefore, understanding their characteristics more completely is necessary for additional development," remarks Nelson.

Provided by University of Oklahoma