Congratulations to Professor Judith N. Burstyn, who has been named the recipient of the 2027 ACS Award for Encouraging Women into Careers in the Chemical Sciences, sponsored by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation. The award, one of the American Chemical Society’s National Awards, recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to attracting women to careers in chemistry and the chemical sciences and helping them succeed.
Burstyn has been a member of the UW–Madison Department of Chemistry since January 1990, and her research in biological inorganic chemistry has spanned metal-mediated hydrolysis, metal centers in gas sensing, and the biochemistry and biophysics of heme proteins — including how heme regulates function across diverse protein families and its role in CO-sensing transcription factors. She currently holds the Irving Shain Chair of Chemistry.
Beyond the lab, Burstyn has been a persistent advocate for women in the sciences throughout her career. In 2017, she made department history as the first woman to serve as chair of the UW–Madison Department of Chemistry, a role in which she worked deliberately to diversify the faculty after a period of decline in the number of women in the department, and to open up difficult conversations about equity and campus climate. Colleagues who worked with her during that term have described her willingness to say hard things and stay in the room for the harder conversations that followed — an approach that shaped how the department confronts its own challenges around inclusion. Her commitment to mentoring women in chemistry, documented as far back as her own oral history reflections on the obstacles she faced coming up in the field, has made her a longtime champion for the next generation of scientists.
The Department of Chemistry congratulates Professor Burstyn on this well-earned national recognition of a career spent advancing both cutting-edge chemistry and the people who do it.