Michelle L. Kovarik

For this year’s career issue, LCGC North America teamed up with the American Chemical Society Subdivision on Chromatography and Separations Chemistry to ask the analytical chemistry community what skills new employees in the field need to succeed. In this report, we analyze the survey results and explore how they can inform the future of analytical chemistry curriculum development.

In 2015, the American Chemical Society’s Committee on Professional Training added a requirement to the ACS degree certification program that undergraduates learn about macromolecules, supramolecular aggregates, and nanomaterials (MSN). This requirement can be met by a specialized course in these topics, but many programs are also choosing the distribute these topics across the curriculum.

In this installment of The LCGC Blog, Michelle L. Kovarik shows how we can each take steps to ensure the diverse talent in our separation science community is fully represented and celebrated in industry awards.

The separation science community is full of talented, productive, and innovative researchers of all genders, from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, working around the globe in academia and industry. Our awards should reflect this. It is one thing to say this. It is another thing to do it. But there are steps we can each take to ensure that our awards showcase the full range of separation science talent.