Ricardo J. Vázquez Appointed to the 2025 JACS Au Early Career Advisory Board

Professor Ricardo J. Vázquez, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, has been appointed to the 2025 JACS Au Early Career Advisory Board (ECAB), a prestigious honor recognizing rising leaders in the chemical sciences. Members of the ECAB are selected through a competitive process and serve as advisors to the JACS Au editorial team, helping shape the journal’s direction by identifying emerging research trends and highlighting impactful science. One of the board’s key responsibilities is to select “ECAB Selects,” a curated list of standout publications considered for the JACS Au Outstanding Paper Award. This appointment not only recognizes Prof. Vázquez’s early contributions to the field but also places him in a position to influence the future of chemical research publishing.

Since launching his independent research program at Indiana University in July 2023, Prof. Vázquez has built a thriving interdisciplinary research group at the interface of organic materials and measurement science. With a team of over ten researchers and multiple undergraduates accepted into top graduate programs, his group has published in high-impact journals and earned national recognition. His lab explores a wide range of topics, including energy storage, bioelectrosynthesis, bioimaging, and spin-sensitive photophysics using conjugated organic systems. This appointment to the ECAB will further extend his impact by providing a platform to amplify forward-thinking voices in the scientific community, engage with early-career researchers, and help shape conversations at the forefront of chemical science.

Prof.  Vázquez was born and raised in Puerto Rico, where he conducted his undergraduate studies at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras (UPRRP). After earning his degree in chemistry, he pursued his doctoral studies at the University of Michigan where his research focused on using time-resolved spectroscopy and nonlinear optics to probe critical properties in organic semiconductors for optoelectronic applications. Prof. Vázquez later completed postdoctoral studies, where he worked with water-soluble organic semiconductors for energy storage, bioimaging, biocatalysis, and bioelectronics applications.