Chemistry Professor Receives Sloan Research Fellowship and Mark Young Scholar Award
UT Austin’s Zachariah Page was selected as a Sloan Research Fellow and won a top ACS young scholar award for 2024.
Zak Page
A Sloan Research Fellowship, given by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is one of the most competitive and prestigious awards available to early-career scholars in fields ranging from computer science to physics, and Zachariah Page of the Department of Chemistry was announced as one of the newest fellows.
In the same week, the American Chemical Society (ACS) named Page the winner of the 2024 Mark Young Scholar Award, in recognition of excellence in basic research and leadership in polymer science. The award is given only once every two years to a researcher age 35 or younger.
Page’s research is focused on developing and integrating selective chemical reactions triggered by light to: synthesize polymers with high speed and efficiency; create multifunctional “smart” plastics that are mechanically robust; and manufacture hierarchical plastics through next generation 3D printing technology. These materials and processes are poised to improve the health and wellbeing of society through applications in stretchable electronics, soft robotics, tissue engineering and more.
Page is the first Mark Young Scholar Award winner from The University of Texas at Austin, and he is one of more than 100 UT faculty to have been named a Sloan Research Fellow since its inception in 1955. He is among 126 researchers the Sloan Foundation selected this year out of a pool of more than 1,000 nominees. Fellows receive a two-year, $75,000 fellowship to drive their research forward.
“Sloan Research Fellowships are extraordinarily competitive awards involving the nominations of the most inventive and impactful early-career scientists across the U.S. and Canada,” said Adam F. Falk, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “We look forward to seeing how Fellows take leading roles shaping the research agenda within their respective fields.”
Page, a faculty member in UT chemistry since 2018, has previously been recognized for his teaching and research, as a 2022 Cottrell Scholar and a 2023 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. Page is also among the faculty in the Texas Materials Institute. He will be honored by the American Chemical Society at its annual meeting next fall in Denver.
