Assistant Professor Jessica Lamb receives Marion Milligan Mason Award

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (12/18/2024) – Assistant Professor Jessica Lamb has received the Marion Milligan Mason Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). This highly selective award, given biennially to only a handful of recipients nationwide, aims to support women in the chemical sciences and kickstart the careers of promising researchers on their path to becoming senior investigators.

Research in the Lamb group uses organic chemistry tools to address critical challenges in polymer chemistry. One of the biggest challenges facing the polymer research community is the plastic waste crisis. In addition to the long-term environmental costs, billions of dollars per year of material value are lost from discarded plastic. “A sustainable future requires us to reimagine our existing linear plastic economy as a circular one,” Lamb says. “Furthermore, it is imperative to develop sustainable polymers with competitive thermal and mechanical properties.” Lamb and her group have focused on a subclass of polyurethanes known as polyoxazolidinones (POxa), which have excellent thermal stability and interesting properties arising from the five-membered heterocycles embedded in the polymer backbone. The group has pioneered the improved synthesis, characterization, and sustainability of POxa, including the depolymerization of POxa back to their monomers, which can be purified and repolymerized to comparable materials to establish a circular lifecycle for these polymers. The Marion Milligan Mason Award will support systematic investigations into this depolymerization process to better understand how different structural features affect the depolymerization as well as which factors control the extent of depolymerization. These insights will aid in the design of chemically-recyclable polymers in the future.

Since joining the University of Minnesota Department of Chemistry in 2020, Lamb has built a research group that focuses on applying catalysis and physical organic techniques to the synthesis of new polymers and small molecules. Her group – made up of a postdoctoral associate, eleven graduate students, and one undergraduate – blends organic, physical organic, organometallic, and polymer chemistry in their research. Lamb has been previously recognized for her work with the 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award (2022), the American Chemical Society Division of Professional Relations (PROF) Leadership Development Award (2021), and she was selected as one of the American Chemical Society Division of Organic Chemistry Academic Young Investigators (2024).

“I am beyond honored to be included in the Marion Milligan Mason Awardees. The previous winners are fantastic scientists and women that I have looked up to for a long time. Beyond the monetary support, the award provides important networking and professional development opportunities in which I look forward to participating. I have always been passionate about promoting women in STEM  – I was heavily involved in Expanding Your Horizons at Cornell during graduate school and I am currently the Vice Chair of the Midwest chapter of Empowering Women in Organic Chemistry – because I have benefitted so much from the community and want to pay that forward. I hope that the MMM community will be another avenue for that kind of mutually beneficial mentorship and support.” – Assistant Professor Jessica Lamb

The Marion Milligan Mason Awards, funded by a $2.2 million bequest from chemist Marion Tuttle Milligan Mason, support early-career women in the chemical sciences with grants of $55,000 awarded to four researchers every two years. The program aims to advance the careers of promising junior faculty in the chemical sciences by providing funding, leadership development, and mentoring opportunities. Mason, an AAAS member since 1965, established the fund to honor her family’s commitment to higher education for women. In an exciting turn of events, Assistant Professor Michelle Calabrese from UMN’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science was also named one of the four awardees this year.