The American Association for the Advancement of Science Honors Four Early-Career Women Chemists

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has recently announced the four recipients of the 2025 Marion Milligan Award for Women in the Chemical Sciences. The award, first presented in 2015, honors the outstanding research efforts of early-career women chemists.

Grace Han is an associate professor of chemistry at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. She first joined the university in 2018 as an assistant professor and was recently promoted to associate professor with tenure last year. In her research, she focuses on designing novel photoswitches for molecular thermal energy storage.

A native of South Korea, Dr. Han earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Pohang University of Science and Technology and her Ph.D. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Michelle Calabrese is an assistant professor of chemical engineering and materials science at the University of Minnesota. She also serves as a faculty advisor for CEMS Students Organizing Against Racism, as well as the CEMS Women+ Group. Her research focuses around two central tenets: the characterization and design of novel soft materials and the development of new scattering sample environments.

Dr. Calabrese received her bachelor’s degree in chemical and biomolecular engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and her Ph.D in the same discipline from the University of Delaware.

Erin Stache is an assistant professor of chemistry at Princeton University in New Jersey. Before joining the Princeton faculty in 2023, she spent three years as an assistant professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Through integrating the fields of organic chemistry, photochemistry, inorganic materials, and polymer chemistry, her lab aims to pioneer fresh advancements in materials science and synthesis.

Dr. Stache is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, where she majored in chemistry. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in chemistry from Colorado State University.

Jessica Lamb is an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Minnesota, where she has taught for the past four years. Her work focuses on applying catalysis and physical organic techniques to the synthesis of new polymers and small molecules, with the goal of developing synthetic methods that allow access to materials with different compositions, selectivity, and architecture.

Dr. Lamb holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of North Dakota and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Cornell University.