CHARM Co-Director, Professor LaShanda Korley has received the Gerry Lessells Award in honor of past AIChE director, Gerald A. Lessells. This award celebrates extraordinary dedication to chemical engineering and STEM professions from members of traditionally underrepresented groups. Lessells dedicated his career as a strong advocate for diversity within AIChE, serving as co-founder of the original Task Force on Minority Youth Career Guidance and as the Institute’s first minority affairs coordinator. Join us in celebrating Dr. Korley’s outstanding leadership and mentorship!
Bio
LaShanda T.J. Korley is a Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering, and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Prior to Prof. Korley’s appointment at UD, she held the Climo Associate Professorship of Macromolecular Science and Engineering at Case Western Reserve University, where she started her independent career in 2007. Prof. Korley is Director of the Center for Plastics Innovation (CPI), an Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences. She co-Directs the Center for Hybrid, Active, and Responsive Materials (CHARM), an NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC), and is the Principal Investigator of the NSF PIRE: Bio-inspired Materials and Systems. She received a B.S. in both Chemistry & Engineering from Clark Atlanta University as well as a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1999. Dr. Korley completed her doctoral studies at MIT in Chemical Engineering and the Program in Polymer Science and Technology in 2005. LaShanda Korley was the recipient of the Provost’s Academic Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship at Cornell in 2005, where she completed a two-year postdoctoral appointment in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
About the Award
AIChE will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Minority Affairs Committee (MAC) at this year’s annual meeting in Boston and is fêting the occasion by honoring its three founding members: Henry Brown, Gerry Lessells, and James Wei. The Lessells, Brown, and Wei Awards provide an honorarium, a plaque, and honorees will be featured in a MAC 30-year anniversary booklet. Awardees will join a panel consisting of distinguished MAC pioneers to share their experiences serving as positive role models and helping others grow in their fields. More information about the AIChE MAC 30 Year Anniversary Awards can be found here.