Jennifer M. Heemstra, the Charles Allen Thomas Professor of Chemistry and chair of chemistry in Arts & Sciences at WashU, delivered a plenary address at the American Chemistry Society (ACS) fall meeting in Denver. ACS is one of the world’s largest scientific societies by membership, with more than 155,000 members at all degree levels and in all fields of chemistry, chemical engineering and related fields.
Heemstra’s presentation was titled “Cultivating the Culture to Elevate Scientific Discovery.”
“Tackling the grand challenges facing our society — from preventing global pandemics to meeting our energy needs while healing our planet — will require diverse and interdisciplinary teams of researchers,” Heemstra said.
“While the importance of a diverse workforce and team science have become widely recognized, our academic culture too often remains siloed within disciplines and marginalizes individuals who don’t align with the identities, perspectives or life experiences of those who have historically populated academia,” she said.
At WashU, Heemstra focuses on harnessing the molecular recognition and self-assembly properties of nucleic acids for applications in biosensing and bioimaging. She and her team are developing new chemical and biological tools to track the location and modification of RNA in living cells.
