UNCA chemistry professor Bert Holmes recognized for undergraduate research mentorship

Press release

From UNC Asheville News Services:

Bert Holmes, UNC Asheville’s Philip G. Carlson Distinguished Chair and professor of chemistry, has earned the 2014 American Chemical Society Award for Research at an Undergraduate Institution. It is the highest recognition by the American Chemical Society (ACS), the professional organization of chemists, for achieving a career of meaningful undergraduate research mentorship.

Holmes has led undergraduate research projects at UNC Asheville since 1998. Before that, he spent 15 years at Lyon College as the W. C. Brown, Sr. Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and head of the Mathematics and Natural Sciences Division. He began his career in 1975 at Ohio Northern University as an assistant professor and then associate professor of chemistry. From 2008-2011, he spent three years as a rotator at the National Science Foundation. His research has been supported for 24 consecutive years by grants from the National Science Foundation and has generated more than $2 million in external support.

For more than 36 years, Holmes has conducted research in the summer with undergraduates, and most of his publications have undergraduates as co-authors. He also is the co-author of a booklet commissioned by the Council on Undergraduate Research titled “How to Get Started in Research at Undergraduate Institutions” that is now in its second edition. Several times each year, he visits other colleges and universities to evaluate or to provide advice about their undergraduate research program.

The ACS Award for Research at an Undergraduate Institution is sponsored by Research Corporation for Science Advancement. This award recognizes research that constitutes advances in science as evidenced by refereed publications with undergraduate co-authors in leading scientific research journals, external research grant support, and the subsequent professional development of students who have participated in the research program. The award is given for significant work over a long period of time rather than for a specific, limited project, and a nominee must be a tenured faculty member of a predominantly undergraduate institution. This is the first time a faculty member at UNC Asheville has received the award, joining a prestigious class of 28 public and private liberal arts universities.

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