Demir Earns Prestigious 2025 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award
Spartan chemist Selvan Demir has been named the recipient of a prestigious 2025 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, one of the most distinguished honors for young faculty in the chemical sciences.
Demir, an assistant professor in Michigan State University’s Department of Chemistry and College of Natural Science, joins a national cohort of faculty recognized for their dual commitment to outstanding scientific research and excellence in teaching.
The Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards Program specifically supports faculty in the early years of their academic careers who have created an outstanding independent body of scholarship and are deeply committed to mentorship efforts. The award provides an unrestricted research grant of $100,000.
Demir’s recognition highlights her group's pioneering research focused on synthesizing new molecular compounds with exciting magnetic properties. This work in molecular magnetism has implications for future technologies, including high-density information storage and quantum computing.
The latest Teacher-Scholar honor follows a number of major accolades for Demir and her lab, including a prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship, the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and a 2025 ACS Rising Star Award.
Demir and her group are also known for their innovative scientific outreach, blending art and science through vibrant visualizations of their complex molecules, often featured on the covers of top scientific journals. This artistic approach serves as a unique way to engage both scientists and the public in complex chemical concepts.
