Prof. Nicholas E. Jackson (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) has won the 2024 CoMSEF Young Investigator Award. He is cited for "For the development and application of scalable quantum mechanical approaches to soft materials at the coarse-grained resolution." Jackson earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Northwestern University in 2016, working with Prof. Mark Ratner and Prof. Lin Chen. He was then a Named Fellow and Assistant Scientist in the Materials Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory, working with Prof. Juan de Pablo. Nicholas delivered a presentation describing his research during the CoMSEF Plenary Session at the 2024 AIChE Annual Meeting in San Diego. The award recognizes outstanding research in computational molecular science and engineering, encompassing both methods and applications. Nominees may hold positions in academia, industry, or a government lab, and must be within 7 years of completion of their highest degree.

The CoMSEF Graduate Student Awards in Computational Molecular Science and Engineering were awarded to participants in the CoMSEF poster session at the AIChE Annual Meeting: Feranmi Victor Olowookere (University of Alabama, Advisor: Heath Turner) and Shiv Rekhi (Texas A&M University, Advisor: Jeetain Mittal). The CoMSEF Graduate Student Awards recognize excellence in research by graduate students in the field of computational molecular science and engineering. The awardees were selected based on the nomination letters received from each student’s advisor, their CV, and a poster presented during the CoMSEF poster session. Victor was honored for "...for establishing protocols for simulating solvated polymers and their chemical transformations." Shiv was honored "...for pioneering the use of molecular modeling and simulations to uncover the thermodynamic driving forces behind protein phase separation."

Professor Heather J. Kulik from the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is the winner of the 2023 CoMSEF Impact Award. She is cited “for pioneering methods bridging accelerated first-principles and multi-scale simulations with data-driven machine learning to guide the design of transition metal-based catalysts and enzymes.” Prior to joining the faculty at MIT in 2013, Heather completed postdocs at Lawrence Livermore (2010) and Stanford (2010−2013). She received her PhD from MIT in 2009. Heather deliveedr a presentation describing her research during the CoMSEF Plenary Session at the 2023 AIChE Annual Meeting. The CoMSEF Impact Award is given annually to a CoMSEF member who is within 15 years of completion of their highest degree.

The CoMSEF Graduate Student Awards in Computational Molecular Science and Engineering were awarded to participants in the CoMSEF poster session at the AIChE Annual Meeting: Siddarth Achar (University of Pittsburgh, Advisor: J. Karl Johnson) and Wei-Tse Hsu (University of Colorado, Advisor: Michael Shirts). The CoMSEF Graduate Student Awards recognize excellence in research by graduate students in the field of computational molecular science and engineering. The awardees were selected based on the nomination letters received from each student’s advisor, their CV, and a poster presented during the CoMSEF poster session.