Asefa receives prestigious NSF CAREER Award

Asefa receives prestigious NSF CAREER AwardFebruary 07, 2007Sara Millersemortim@syr.edu

Tewodros “Teddy” Asefa, assistant professor of chemistry in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award, NSF’s most prestigious and competitive award for young faculty members. This award recognizes outstanding scientists and engineers who, early in their careers, show exceptional potential for leadership.

Asefa’s general area of research interest is in the design, synthesis and self-assembly of novel inorganic and organic-inorganic hybrid nanostructured and nanoporous materials and nanobiomaterials. By introducing multifunctional organic, organometallic or biological groups into such nanostructured materials, his research helps create new classes of nanomaterials with potentially useful properties for nanoelectronics, sensing, biological imaging and targeted drug delivery.

This CAREER award will enable Asefa to support his research group’s effort in the development of novel multifunctional nanomaterials for efficient catalytic productions of various synthetic and pharmaceutical products and other applications. He will also use it to effectively integrate research and education at SU and with his outreach activities in Upstate New York.

Asefa received a bachelor’s degree from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia; master’s degrees from the University of Delaware and the University at Buffalo; and a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. He began his research as a postdoctoral fellow at both McGill University and the University of Toronto. Since 2005, he has been with SU’s Department of Chemistry as an assistant professor.

NSF established the CAREER program in 1995 to help top-performing junior faculty scientists and engineers simultaneously develop their contributions and commitment to research and education. Awards typically range from $200,000 to $500,000 and are in duration from four to five years. Asefa’s award is for $504,000 over five years.