The College of Chemistry is pleased to announce that Christopher Chang, Class of 1942 Chair Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley, is among this year’s 184 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellows. The prestigious award recognizes scholars with impressive achievements in fields ranging from the natural sciences to the creative arts.
The 2021 fellows were chosen from nearly 3,000 applicants in the United States and Canada and include 19 scholars from six UC campuses.
Prof. Chang’s research focuses on metals in biology and energy. He has pursued new concepts in sensing and catalysis that draw from core disciplines of inorganic, organic and biological chemistry. His laboratory team has developed activity-based sensing as a general technology platform for biological applications such as diagnostics, proteomics and drug discovery. The fellowship will support Chang’s current project, The Inorganic Foundations of Life: From Metals to Metal Medicines.
Prof. Chang said of the award, “I’m grateful to the Guggenheim Foundation for their support of our work on how metals can impact biology and medicine and the members of our lab for their efforts to push the science forward.”
Guggenheim fellowship winners receive one-time grants of varying amounts that allow recipients the time and creative freedom to complete their research, books or other projects. The program was established in 1925 by U.S. Sen. Simon Guggenheim and his wife in memory of their son John Simon Guggenheim, who died at age 17 in 1922.