Petersson to Receive 2013 Journal of Physical Organic Chemistry Award for Early Excellence

Assistant Professor of Chemistry E. James Petersson has won the 2013 Journal of Physical Organic Chemistry Award for Early Excellence in the Field of Physical Organic Chemistry. The award is given to an individual working in the field of physical organic chemistry who is less than six years into his or her first appointment. Petersson will receive the award and present a lecture at the Gordon Research Conference on Physical Organic Chemistry in New Hampshire in June.

Last November Professor Petersson received another honor for early-career scientists, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award. He has also been selected as one of just two US Young Investigator Representatives to the European Society for Organic Chemistry Meeting in Marseilles in July. 

Petersson’s research focuses on proteins and the amino acids which make them up. His lab has developed a unique way of tracking proteins that may someday allow them to make atomic-scale movies of protein motions. This has very real implications, including the synthesizing of misfolding proteins in diseases such as Alzheimer’s and mad cow disease.