The ACS Division of Organic Chemistry is pleased to announce that Marisa Kozlowski is the 2023 Leete Award winner. The award honors Edward Leete of the University of Minnesota, who, through his contributions to science and education, fostered an appreciation and love for organic chemistry. The award consists of a plaque and a cash award and will be formally presented at the ACS National Meeting.
Prof. Kozlowski received an A.B. in Chemistry from Cornell University and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley for work on the rational design of enzyme inhibitors under the direction of Paul Bartlett. After studying asymmetric catalysis in the laboratories of David A. Evans at Harvard University as a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow, she joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and currently holds the rank of Professor of Chemistry.
The major focus of Professor Kozlowski’s research is the development of new catalytic methods for efficient organic synthesis using computation and high throughput screening. Professor Kozlowski’s contributions have been recognized by a DuPont Young Investigator Award, an NSF CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the Kahn Award for Distinguished Teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, an American Cancer Society Beginning Research Scholar Award, the Philadelphia Organic Chemists’ Club Award in 2010, election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012, the Philadelphia ACS Section Award in 2012, election as an American Chemical Society Fellow in 2013, and the ACS Cope Scholar Award in 2022. Prof. Kozlowski has authored over 170 independent publications. She has also served in several leadership roles for the Organic Division of the American Chemical Society and on numerous study sections including a term as Chair of the American Cancer Society CDD Study Section. She is currently Editor-In-Chief of Organic Letters.
Professor Kozlowski is committed to education on several fronts. First, Kozlowski coauthored with Professor Patrick Walsh the book “Fundamentals of Asymmetric Catalysis”, available from University Science Books. In addition, she created an archive of articles for graduate level chemists “Experimental Techniques to Study Organic Chemistry Mechanisms” on her website. This has become the authoritative resource for those wanting to dive deeper into how reactions work. Finally, as a result of the COVID 19 pandemic, she worked to implement remote labs and recently published these studies in the Journal of Chemical Education. For these collective efforts, Professor Kozlowski was awarded the Charles Ludwig Distinguished Teaching Award in 2020 and the Dennis DeTurck Award for Innovation in Teaching in 2021.