IU Chemistry Faculty Sarah Hill, Stephen C. Jacobson, and Xingchen Ye Receive the 2024 Indiana University Trustees Teaching Award

Congratulations to Dept. of Chemistry Lecturer Dr. Sarah Hill, Professor and Dorothy & Edward Bair Chair in Chemistry Stephen Jacobson, and Assistant Professor Xingchen Ye on their recent 2024 Indiana University Trustees Teaching Award. This award emphasizes excellence in classroom teaching and outstanding course development. The Department of Chemistry nominates awardees based on the high quality of their instruction and positive impact on student learning.

Sarah Hill earned her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Michigan Technological University in 2000 and worked in the automotive industry as a quality engineer for TI Automotive.  There, she discovered a surprising passion for teaching while training laboratory technicians. She pursued her teaching career by earning her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Iowa under Dr. Christopher M. Cheatum in 2009 focusing on using femtosecond, IR, photon-echo spectroscopy to study the active-site dynamics in human carbonic anhydrase. In 2009, Dr. Hill began teaching at Michigan Technological University in the first-year general chemistry experience and in physical chemistry. She joined the chemistry faculty at Indiana University in 2018 to continue teaching in general and physical chemistry.  

Dr. Hill’s outstanding instruction in Chemistry 103 lab, physical chemistry lab, and, more recently, C117, were of particular note in her nomination for this award.

Stephen C. Jacobson is a Professor of Chemistry and has held the Dorothy & Edward Bair Chair in Chemistry at Indiana University since 2015.  He received a B.S. in mathematics from Georgetown University in 1988 and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Tennessee in 1992. After graduate school, Prof. Jacobson was awarded an Alexander Hollaender Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and in 1995, he became a research staff member at ORNL. In 2003, Prof. Jacobson joined the faculty in the Department of Chemistry at Indiana University. His research efforts are directed toward miniaturization of analytical instrumentation with an emphasis on advancing micro- and nanofluidic devices. Prof. Jacobson and his research group are actively working in measurement science, including microfluidic separations, nanofluidic transport, cancer screening, virus sensing and assembly, and bacterial development and aging.

Prof. Jacobson’s efforts in the revision of the graduate electronics course, as well as his service in supporting the analytical chemistry graduate program, particularly through the A800 graduate course, were of significant note in his nomination for this award.

Xingchen Ye received his B.S. in chemistry from University of Science and Technology of China in 2006. He received his Ph.D. in chemistry from University of Pennsylvania in December 2012, working with Prof. Christopher B. Murray. He was the recipient of the John G. Miller Award for his thesis entitled, “Chemical Design of Optical Metamaterials through Self-assembly of Plasmonic and Phosphorescent Nanocrystal Superlattices.” He then did postdoctoral work with Prof. Paul Alivisatos at University of California, Berkeley from 2013 to 2016, focusing on in-situ electron microscopy of nanocrystal transformation and self-assembled polymer nanocomposites. He joined the IU faculty as an assistant professor of chemistry in January 2017 and recently received a prestigious NSF Career award. His group is interested in the precision synthesis of colloidal nanocrystals and their integration into mesoscale assemblies for energy conversion. The Ye group is also interested in in-situ multimodal imaging of nanoscale dynamics and materials transformation. 

Prof. Ye’s outstanding efforts in the development of the materials chemistry coursework, especially the implementation of the materials lab course, were of particular note in his nomination for this award.