Award Will Boost Chemistry Professor’s Research and Bring New Dimension to Lab Sessions
February 19, 2025
- Author
- Jay Pfeifer
Bassil El-Zaatari, assistant professor of chemistry, was honored as a leading researcher and teacher recently when he was named a 2025 Cottrell Scholar by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement.
El-Zaatari joins 15 other early career scholars in chemistry, physics and astronomy as recipients of its 2025 Cottrell Scholar Awards. Each awardee receives $120,000 over three years.
The Cottrell award will act as a multiplier for his research, funding new equipment and increasing the number of Davidson College students who can join his research team. He also will be able to take more students to present their findings at national chemistry conferences.
Professor El-Zaatari and Matthew McLaughlin '25
El-Zaatari’s lab studies polymers — large molecules made up of many smaller repeating units — and is particularly focused on enhancing the recyclability and reprocessing capabilities of thermosetting polymers, a type of polymer that hardens when heated and can be found in products from adhesives to soft-drink cans to electrical components.
The strong chemical bonding that makes these materials so physically tough also makes them difficult to break down into a readily recyclable form. El-Zaatari’s research group designs thermosetting polymers with dynamic covalent bonds which can break and reform under specific stimuli, such as heat and light. These polymers can then gain reprocessing and self-healing capabilities while maintaining their mechanical integrity.
The grant also will enable El-Zaatari to encourage the students in his chemistry classes to think more broadly about the intersection of chemical principles and different fields through relating them to wider world problems and challenges. He will implement deliberative debate labs and develop new systems-thinking modules in his courses. El-Zaatari has already utilized deliberation — a measured, patient model of discourse — in an advanced polymer class to think about solutions to plastic waste and pollution.
“When students learn about different chemical phenomena across the curriculum, they rarely think about how it’s connected to other fields and the world around them. I want to start changing this by developing deliberative debate labs into all the courses I teach, including general chemistry, in order to cultivate a new generation of scientific thinkers who can better bridge the gap between classroom learning, laboratory work and real-world impact.”
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
The awards are named for educator, inventor and science visionary Frederick Gardner Cottrell, who founded Research Corporation for Science Advancement in 1912. Cottrell Scholars are chosen through a rigorous peer-review process of applications from public and private research universities and primarily undergraduate institutions. Their award proposals incorporate both research and science education.
