{"id":22035,"date":"2022-12-07T15:34:34","date_gmt":"2022-12-07T20:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=22035"},"modified":"2022-12-07T15:37:42","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T20:37:42","slug":"wagenknecht-recognized-by-council-on-undergraduate-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wagenknecht-recognized-by-council-on-undergraduate-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Wagenknecht recognized by Council on Undergraduate Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

Furman Chemistry Professor Paul Wagenknecht \u201986 knows the importance of photocatalysts in harnessing energy. He also understands how vital his role is as mentor for the development of students in his lab. In recognition of his outstanding mentorship, the Council on Undergraduate Research<\/a> has named Wagenknecht one of four 2022 awardees<\/a> in CUR\u2019s chemistry division.<\/p>\n

He spoke to CUR podcast \u201cChem4Real<\/a>\u201d host Vanessa McCaffrey about the ChemCUR Outstanding Mentorship Award. In the 30-minute session, Wagenknecht touched on his current research including the use of photocatalysts for converting light into electricity or fuels. He also discussed the mentees he has shepherded along the way and how they have contributed to his own growth as a scientist.<\/p>\n

In addition to showing appreciation for Furman\u2019s John Wheeler, chemistry professor and associate provost for integrative science, and two other researchers who nominated him for the award, Wagenknecht credited a \u201cstring of undergraduates eager to get their hands dirty in the lab.\u201d He gave a nod to supportive administration and colleagues at Furman, as well as the full complement of facilities and instrumentation available for carrying out the work.<\/p>\n

Toward the end of the podcast, Wagenknecht addressed the surprising effect COVID-19 had on his lab in terms of building expertise in computational chemistry with assistance from Furman Chemistry Professor George Shields.<\/p>\n

Wagenknecht wrapped the program with words of advice.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo much of it comes down to the relationships that you’ve made because science is really collaborative. Just keep making as many of those connections as possible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Wagenknecht returned to his alma mater in 2004 after earning his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry at Stanford through an NSF Graduate Fellowship and launching a tenure track position at San Jose State University.<\/p>\n

Throughout his career, he has secured nearly $3 million in external funding to support undergraduate research. Since beginning his independent career with undergraduate researchers, he has published nearly 40 peer-reviewed scholarly articles (mostly with student coauthors), and he holds two patents. He is the recipient of the 2020 South Carolina Governor\u2019s Award for Excellence in Scientific Research.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chemistry Professor Paul Wagenknecht urges scientists to go the extra mile when making connections as collaborators can show up in surprising places. Learn more about his philosophy in a CUR podcast about an award he won for excellence in mentorship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":257,"featured_media":22039,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,53,1732,6,77,61,55],"tags":[539,1733,485],"class_list":["post-22035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-chemistry","category-cur-chem4real","category-in-the-news","category-integrative-research","category-the-furman-advantage","category-undergraduate-research","tag-academic-mentoring","tag-collaboration","tag-covid-19-pivot"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/257"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}