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The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Bard College Chemistry Professor Craig M. Anderson funding up to $245,000 over three years to support a research project that will be conducted with undergraduate students. The project, “RUI: Metal complexes with Benzothiophene and/or NHC ligands: Synthesis and Applications,” looks to improve the understanding of metal-ligand bonding, with potential benefits for the environmental, economic, and health sectors, including the development of more efficient and robust organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) and anticancer agents. Anderson says a vital component of this work is that it further integrates laboratory research within Bard’s undergraduate curriculum by training students to be more proficient in the practice of science in a contemporary chemistry laboratory and directly involving them in the dissemination of research results through conference presentations and peer-reviewed journal articles.
 
“The hands-on experience our undergraduate students receive from conducting meaningful, publishable research, and by contributing to the writing and preparing of manuscripts is invaluable for their success in their future studies, regardless of their chosen field, and/or for their advancement as scientists,” says Anderson. He notes that NSF support that he has received since 2012 has resulted in nine published manuscripts with 42 Bard College undergraduate coauthors, with other manuscripts forthcoming. “This federal funding gives our students many more great research opportunities.”
 
Craig M. Anderson is the Wallace Benjamin Flint and L. May Hawver Professor of Chemistry at Bard College, where he has been teaching since 2001. He holds B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from the University of Western Ontario and a Ph.D. from the Université de Montréal. His awards include two previous three-year NSF grants (2014–17: $216,000 and 2011–14: $198,000), and, in 2011, the prestigious Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, which recognized his scholarly research with undergraduates as well as his compelling commitment to teaching. The $60,000 award ran from 2011 to 2016. Anderson’s research centers on the study of transition metal complexes with general applications toward bioinorganic and catalytic systems. His work has been published in numerous scholarly publications devoted to chemical sciences, including Organometallics, Inorganic Chemistry, Journal of Organometallic Chemistry, Journal of the American Chemical Society, and the Canadian Journal of Chemistry. His other awards include the Chemical Institute of Canada’s Award of Excellence, Andrew E. Scott Medal and Prize, and Society of Chemical Industry Award.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Bard College Chemistry Professor Craig M. Anderson funding up to $245,000 over three years to support a research project that will be conducted with undergraduate students. The project, “RUI: Metal complexes with Benzothiophene and/or NHC ligands: Synthesis and Applications,” looks to improve the understanding of metal-ligand bonding, with potential benefits for the environmental, economic, and health sectors, including the development of more efficient and robust organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) and anticancer agents.