NSM Professors Win Multi-Year Funding for their Research

The life of a young collegiate scientific researcher can be pretty exciting. Immersing yourself into work and pursuing your passions while molding students’ minds in the classroom can be an exhilarating experience.

But researchers soon discover that continuing their work requires outside funding. Thus begins the grant-writing process—which can be a long, arduous and time-consuming task.

Now, imagine if you were to be awarded funding, not for one year or two, but for five years. Think about all you would be able to accomplish with the majority of your efforts going toward your research work.

Those are just some of the benefits of receiving the CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program.

“The CAREER Award provides a very nice five years of support so we can focus on continuing to make new research discoveries,” said 2019 CAREER Award winner and assistant professor of chemistry, Thomas Teets.

The CAREER Program offers the NSF's most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.

More than 70 UH researchers have won this award since the 1970s.

Most researchers see the CAREER award as a vote of confidence in their work.

“Winning the CAREER award has motivated us to continue to push the frontiers of science,” said Ding-Shyue (Jerry) Yang, associate professor of chemistry.

Teets echoed Yang’s sentiments.

“It’s a very good validation that we’ve been making good progress and making important discoveries in our field.”

Hear more from Teets and Yang not only about their research but about what they consider the best parts of their jobs.