The American Chemical Society (ACS) has awarded their highly prestigious Open Eye Outstanding Junior Faculty Award to Arindam “Ari” Chakraborty, assistant professor of chemistry in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences.

The accolade, given by ACS’ Computers in Chemistry Division, honors Chakraborty’s research in theoretical and computational chemistry, with the goal of understanding the physical and chemical properties of nanoparticles.

The biannual award not only showcases outstanding tenure-track junior professors from across the nation, but also assists new faculty members in gaining visibility within the computational chemistry field of study.

“Our research is an investigation of nanomaterial for various applications, including solar cells, light-harvesting materials, photodetectors, and nano-sized probes for biological systems,” Chakraborty says. “This award highlights the novel research being done here at Syracuse. I hope it also encourages graduate and undergraduate students to consider applying here.”

In addition to receiving a $1,000 cash award, Chakraborty will travel to Denver, Colo., in March to be recognized at ACS’s annual meeting and symposia. While there, he will present some of his current research at a special symposium, organized by the ACS Division of Physical Chemistry.

“Going to ACS meetings is always exciting; however, this time, the award has made the trip extra special for me,” says Chakraborty, a Syracuse faculty member since 2009. “I am deeply honored to receive this award, and I look forward to sharing my research with the group.”

This is the second time Chakraborty has been recognized by ACS in the past few months. Recently, his research group collaborated with that of Shikha Nangia, professor of biomedical and chemical engineering (in Syracuse’s College of Engineering and Computer Science), to study interactions between protein molecules and nanoparticles. The interdisciplinary study, carried out by graduate students Jennifer Elward and Flaviyan Jerome, is the subject of this month’s cover story in the Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation (ACS, 2015).