{"id":151614,"date":"2023-02-10T11:21:16","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T16:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=151614"},"modified":"2025-12-15T14:36:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T19:36:17","slug":"national-science-foundation-awards-582k-grant-to-bates-chemistry-and-biochemistry-professor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2023\/02\/10\/national-science-foundation-awards-582k-grant-to-bates-chemistry-and-biochemistry-professor\/","title":{"rendered":"National Science Foundation awards $582K grant to Bates chemistry and biochemistry professor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Geneva Laurita is the recipient of a major National Science Foundation grant of $581,984.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NSF CAREER award, considered to be one of the foundation\u2019s most prestigious awards for faculty members who are just beginning their teaching and research careers, is based on both her scientific research in solid state materials and how she brings undergraduates into that vital area of scientific exploration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Receiving a National Science Foundation CAREER award is a milestone accomplishment, and provides clear evidence of the high quality work that Geneva Laurita is conducting,\u201d says Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs Malcolm Hill. \u201cBates defines excellent teachers as individuals who are active scholars and experts in their fields, and this award is the clearest indication of both.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Assistant
Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Geneva Laurita works with students during her chemical reactivity course in Bonney Science Center on Jan. 30, 2023. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For Laurita, who joined the Bates faculty in 2017, the award means being able to do more of what she came to Bates to do: introduce students to concepts and research work that is typically available only to graduate students and rarely seen at primarily undergraduate institutions like Bates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’ve always been passionate about undergraduate research, and this is a place where the undergraduates are doing research with faculty members, and it is high impact, high level research at the top of the field, working on the questions that everybody is asking. And Bates has the resources to get to do that kind of research.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laurita, who received the grant news just a few weeks ago, is still taking it all in. \u201cI still am like, \u2018What? Did this really happen?\u2019 Because this is amazing.\u201d She said this was the last year she was eligible to apply for this grant, which is intended to vault scientists into the next phase of their careers, and the only time she applied for it. \u201cI had never applied for it because honestly, I didn\u2019t quite have the idea yet.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea came to her as a result of wanting to connect Bates undergraduates with graduate students elsewhere, and also has a direct connection to an earlier, 2019 NSF grant of $193,405 Laurita received to study a group of materials called pyrochlore oxides. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Described by Laurita to the NSF as a \u201cpoorly understood family of materials,\u201d pyrochlore oxides have potential for many technology-driven applications, particularly replacing lead-based materials that are highly useful \u2014 and used \u2014 in technology but full of challenges because of their inherent toxicities. Pyrochlores present an opportunity for less-toxic, potentially lead-free materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How do you pronounce “pyrochlores”?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Listen to Geneva Laurita sound it out: “PIE-ro-klors.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\"Geneva<\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n