{"id":171308,"date":"2025-12-11T16:04:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T21:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=171308"},"modified":"2025-12-15T14:15:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T19:15:17","slug":"faculty-member-geneva-laurita-wins-national-teaching-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2025\/12\/11\/faculty-member-geneva-laurita-wins-national-teaching-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Faculty member Geneva Laurita wins national teaching award"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Geneva Laurita works with a student in Chemical Reactivity Lab. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)

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Geneva Laurita, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, was recently named a Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar \u2014 one of only eight to receive this national award \u2014 in recognition of her commitment to scholarship and undergraduate research. The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation awards unrestricted research grants of $75,000 in support of faculty who have produced substantial independent research and who are committed to supporting undergraduate research. The recipients, whose application begins with an institutional nomination, are selected by a review panel of distinguished faculty in the chemical sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis\u00a0is quite an honor, but little surprise, to see Geneva honored in this way given her consistent commitment to undergraduate research,\u201d said Joanne Roberts, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laurita\u2019s research dossier is extensive; since joining Bates in 2017, she has published over 20 Bates-affiliated articles from her research, which focuses on the intersection of inorganic solid state materials and energy and electronics-related technology. Notably, 17 Bates students are listed as co-editors in those Bates-affiliated publications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Associate Professor Geneva Laurita in the lab with students. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo invite students into the process, to mentor them through the research and writing, and then to facilitate their first publications \u2014 that is what sets Geneva apart and made her an excellent candidate for this national award,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t the first time that Laurita\u2019s commitment to research with students has been celebrated. In 2023, Laurita received a $581,984 CAREER award<\/a> from the National Science Foundation \u2014 considered one of the most prestigious awards for early-stage researchers. The funding from the NSF grant has allowed Laurita to lean further into her commitment to supporting undergraduate research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the things that I\u2019m really passionate about,\u201d Laurita saus, \u201cis providing these pivotal or really foundational moments in the lab for undergraduate students that they might not have access to \u2014 working with national labs and supporting travel to national labs for students so that we can continue these really cool experiments at these different sources.\u201d That passion, connecting students to research labs, dovetails with what the Dreyfus Foundation states they seek in early-career researchers who \u201cdemonstrate leadership in original scholarly research of outstanding quality, as well as innovation in and dedication to education.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laurita teaches courses in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, including \u201cAtomic and Molecular Structure,\u201d \u201cChemical Reactivity,\u201d \u201cInorganic Chemistry,\u201d \u201cAdvanced Topics in Inorganic Chemistry,\u201d and \u201cChemistry and the Arts.\u201d She works to incorporate students into research in many of her courses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m so honored to receive this award,\u201d Laurita said. \u201cIt would not have been possible without the dedication and hard work of my student collaborators. I am thrilled that this award will provide the opportunity for future students and I to explore new directions in my lab that are more closely related to the arts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Geneva Laurita, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, was recently named a Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar \u2014 one of only eight to receive this national award \u2014 in recognition of her commitment to scholarship and undergraduate research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1917,"featured_media":171330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":["geneva-laurita"],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-171308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-batesnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1917"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171308"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171334,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171308\/revisions\/171334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}