Professor Erin Carlson named Distinguished McKnight University Professor

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (4/2/2025) – Professor Erin Carlson has been honored with the distinction of Distinguished McKnight University Professor. The title recognizes outstanding faculty members who have recently achieved full professor status.

The Carlson research group seeks to address the growing global emergency of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotics have been one of the key reasons that the human lifespan has steadily increased for many decades. However, resistance to these essential drugs has reached a critical tipping point and it is estimated that by 2050, more people will die from resistant infections in the United States than from cancer. Traditional antibacterial drugs directly kill bacteria, which results in the rapid evolution of drug resistance. Carlson’s innovative approach aims to instead block the ability of bacteria to sense and respond to their surroundings. Her group works to expand the collective understanding of how bacteria interact with their environment and how this can be disrupted to weaken a pathogen’s ability to cause disease. Her research is highly interdisciplinary, spanning chemistry, microbiology, medicinal chemistry, and biochemistry. To date, her research has produced more than 85 papers and 6 patents, while also providing interdisciplinary training for numerous graduate and undergraduate students, as well as postdoctoral fellows. 

In tandem with her group’s research, Carlson is currently a co-director of the University of Minnesota’s National Institutes of Health Chemistry Biology Interface Training Grant (CBITG). The CBITG provides interdisciplinary training to chemistry, medicinal chemistry, and biochemistry graduate students. CBITG trainees gain skills necessary to cross traditional boundaries, think critically, and understand and conduct scientific research at the interface of chemistry and biology. The program also fosters professional development in the areas of career awareness, knowledge of chemical biology, rigor and reproducibility, ethical conduct of research, and appreciation of the contributions of scientists from all backgrounds. Carlson has also developed several courses during her tenure at UMN including a lab course in Chemical Biology for undergraduate chemistry majors, which is one of only a few such lab courses in the country and provides our students with a unique opportunity to experience the tools utilized in this field early in their careers. She recently proposed a new undergraduate lecture course, “Bioorganic Chemistry and Chemical Biology” that will be offered for the first time this fall. 

Carlson joined the Department of Chemistry faculty in 2014, and was named the Smith Professor of Chemistry in 2021. For her outstanding contributions to the department and the field of chemistry, Carlson has been previously awarded a number of honors including the Research Corporation for Science Advancement’s Cottrell Plus SEED Award (2024), the Outstanding Postdoctoral Mentor Award from the UMN Postdoctoral Association (2017), the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE; 2016), the American Chemical Society Women Chemists Committee Rising Star Award (2016), the Sloan Research Fellowship (2013), an NSF CAREER Award (2012), the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (2011), and was named a Pew Biomedical Scholar (2010) and a Cottrell Research Scholar (2012).

Chemistry Department Head Christy Haynes writes: “The Distinguished McKnight University Professorship is an exciting addition to Prof. Erin Carlson's already-impressive list of awards, recognizing the importance of her cutting-edge chemical biology research to our department and the University of Minnesota. Whether it is the development of new antibiotics, the design of a cross-department training program, or service that enriches the science community, Prof. Carlson brings creativity and rigor to all that she does.”

The Distinguished McKnight University Professorship program recognizes outstanding faculty members who have recently achieved full professor status. Distinguished McKnight University Professorship recipients hold this title for as long as they remain employed at the University of Minnesota.