Professor Judith Burstyn named director at NSF

Judith Burstyn
Professor Judith Burstyn

Professor Judith Burstyn will take leave of absence from the Department of Chemistry to join the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Chemistry as its division director in January 2025. The position is a two-year appointment.

Judith was the Irving Shain Chair in Chemistry and the department chair From 2017 to 2021. She is an accomplished researcher in biological inorganic chemistry. She has been recognized with several awards and fellowships, including selection as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and as an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow. She has served in several roles in service to the chemistry community, including as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the American Chemical Society Journal of Inorganic Chemistry and as chair of the Gordon Research Conference on the Chemistry and Biology of Tetrapyrroles.

Judith received her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from UCLA in 1986.  She conducted her post-doctoral training at the UCLA School of Medicine and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with Professor Stephen Lippard. She joined the University of Wisconsin–Madison chemistry faculty in 1990.

National Science Foundation announcement