Brgoch Receives NSM Junior Faculty Award for Excellence in Research
Jakoah Brgoch in the Department of Chemistry is the 2020 recipient of NSM’s Junior Faculty Award for Excellence in Research. The award recognizes faculty at the rank of assistant professor who have demonstrated great potential in research and/or scholarship by virtue of the exceptional quality of their contributions.
Each NSM department nominates an eligible faculty member for the honor. The award, given each year, comes with a monetary award, plaque, and a nameplate placed on a plaque in the Dean’s Office. The award recipient is recognized during NSM Commencement.
Brgoch’s research group develops functional inorganic material by combining experimental chemistry, computational modeling and machine learning. He investigates a range of topics, including optical materials, bioanalytical chemistry and the mechanical properties of materials.
At UH, his research has led to contributions in 42 peer-reviewed publications (32 as lead author) in journals such as Nature Communications and Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Brgoch is the recipient of a 2018 NSF CAREER Award, the 2018 American Chemical Society Greater Houston Section Younger Chemist Award, and the UH 2019 Undergraduate Research Mentor Award. Most recently, he was one of two UH faculty named as 2020 Sloan Research Fellows, an honor that recognizes outstanding early-career faculty selected for their potential to revolutionize their fields of study.
The Junior Faculty Award for Excellence in Research review process relies on the hard work of an ad hoc committee comprised of one faculty member from each department in NSM selected by the respective department chairs. The committee makes a recommendation for award to the Dean, who makes the final decision.
The 2020 committee included:
- Yuhong Wang, Associate Professor, Biology & Biochemistry
- Ognjen Miljanic, Professor, Chemistry
- Lennart Johnson, Professor, Computer Science
- Guoquan Wang, Professor, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences
- Bernard Bodmann, Professor, Mathematics
- Anthony Timmons, Associate Professor, Physics
A list of previous winners of the Junior Faculty Award for Excellence in Research is on the NSM Recognition and Awards webpage.