Sloan Fellowship awarded to Carolina chemist
February 18, 2025 | By UNC College of Arts and Sciences
Alex Zhukhovitskiy, William R. Kenan Jr. Fellow and an assistant professor of chemistry, has been awarded a 2025 Sloan Research Fellowship, among the most prestigious awards given to early-career scientists.
The announcement was made by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation on Feb. 18. A total of 126 early-career researchers were awarded the fellowships, given to extraordinary U.S. and Canadian scientists whose creativity, innovation and research accomplishments make them stand out as the next generation of leaders. The new fellows, who were nominated by their peers, are drawn from a diverse range of 51 institutions across seven academic fields. More than 1,000 researchers are nominated by their fellow scientists each year.
Winners receive a two-year, $75,000 fellowship which can be spent to advance the fellow’s research.
Zhukhovitskiy is a chemist in the College of Arts and Sciences who has a keen interest in large molecules called polymers, formed by repeatedly linking molecules to each other into long chains. Biological polymers like proteins and DNA are the basis of life as we know it, and synthetic polymers like polyethylene and polyisoprene compose materials at the core of numerous modern technologies — from plastics used in vehicles to cancer therapeutics.
Continued technological progress in this space — including how to make plastics more environmentally sustainable — hinges on advancing the chemistry of polymers. The Zhukhovitskiy group is focused on addressing fundamental challenges in polymer chemistry by implementing and advancing organic, inorganic and supramolecular chemistry methods. Researchers apply the insights gained from fundamental research to advance a number of applications — from polymer sustainability to tissue engineering to solar energy capture and conversion.
Zhukhovitskiy joined the Carolina faculty in 2019. He received his Ph.D. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was an LSRF Merck Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley.
Zhukhovitskiy is the recipient of numerous awards. He received the AFOSR Young Investigator Award to continue his work on conjugate polymers and nanowires. He was also granted a U.S Department of Energy Early Career Award for his work on diene polymers to transform rubber waste into building blocks for functional materials. He has been recognized with an NSF Career Award, an Early Career Award from the Army Research Office and 3M’s Non-Tenured Faculty Award for Early Career Achievements, among other honors.
In outreach to the community, Zhukhovitskiy lab members perform experiments over Zoom and in person with kindergarten through eighth grade students to engage them in thinking about science and the scientific method.
“Alex is one of our rising stars at the interface of synthetic chemistry and polymer chemistry, and this Sloan fellowship represents an extremely well-deserved recognition of his work, which spans from fundamental studies to real-world applications,” said James Cahoon, professor and chair of the department of chemistry.
Awarded annually since 1955, a Sloan Fellowship is among the most coveted awards given to young researchers in part because many past fellows have gone on to great achievements in science, including Nobel Prizes.
“The Sloan Research Fellows represent the very best of early-career science, embodying the creativity, ambition and rigor that drive discovery forward,” said Adam F. Falk, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Learn more about the new Sloan Fellows.
See this article on the UNC College of Arts and Sciences website.