The Department offers a number of fellowship and award opportunities for all students. These include the Fuson Travel Award, Seemon Pines Award, Pines Travel Award, Pines Fellowship, Beak Literature Seminar Award, and the Vanderveer Voorhees Award.
Fuson Travel Award
Up to six Fuson Travel Awards are given annually to organic students to present their research at the ACS National Meetings or at other professional meetings such as Gordon Research Conferences. The awards are made to honor and celebrate the accomplishments of R.C. Fuson who was a distinguished faculty member at the University of Illinois for 35 years. The Fuson endowment also funds the annual R.C. Fuson lectureship series.
Seemon Pines Award
The Seemon Pines Award is sponsored by the late Dr. Seemon Pines, alumnus of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois who went on to establish an illustrious career at Merck after receiving his PhD with Prof. Nelson Leonard. The Seemon Pines award is granted each year for the most outstanding research presentation at the Annual Beak-Pines Organic Area Allerton Conference.
Pines Travel Award
Each year a number of students receive a travel grant to present their PhD research in the form of a seminar at the institution from which they received their undergraduate degree in chemistry. This award is made possible by the generous donation of the late Dr. Seemon Pines , former Vice President of Pharmaceutical Process R&D at Merck.
Pines Fellowship
Seemon Pines also endowed a graduate fellowship. stipulating that this fellowship should recognize outstanding research accomplishment. Advanced students in organic laboratories who have an outstanding record of research productivity as demonstrated in publications, posters, or talks.
Beak Literature Seminar Award
This award is given each semester to the best CHEM 535 and 575 seminars, as judged by the students enrolled in each course. The award is sponsored by the late Dr. Peter Beak, who served as faculty at the U of I for over 60 years, and his wife Sandra Beak. The award was inaugurated with the Spring 2021 semester.
Vanderveer Voorhees Award
This award is presented each year to the 4th year graduate student(s) with the most creative Independent Research Proposal. Dr. Voorhees was a graduate student with Professor Roger Adams and was the coauthor on the seminal paper describing catalytic hydrogenation with platinum oxide (J. Am. Chem. Soc 1922, 44, 1397-405), which came to be known as Adams' catalyst.