IFM early-career researcher selected for prestigious Future Leaders program
The Institute for Frontier Materials’ Dr Ken Aldren Usman has been selected among peers from some of the world’s top universities, including Yale, Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and MIT, to join the 2024 CAS Future Leaders Program.
CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society specialising in scientific knowledge management, selected 35 exceptional early-career scientists from a pool of global candidates who applied for a spot in the program known as one of the best leadership learning experiences in the world of science.
The 2024 cohort hail from 13 countries, working at 33 graduate or post-doctoral programs, and specialising in scientific disciplines that span computer-aided drug design, atmospheric/environmental chemistry, sustainable polymers, and cancer diagnostics.
“CAS Future Leaders offers early-career scientists the opportunity to participate in leadership and storytelling seminars, learn from industry thought leaders how to present their ideas in an impactful manner, engage in scientific discourse, and develop connections with peer scientists from around the world,” CAS Future Leaders program director Peter Carlton said.
Participants in the program, which will take place in August, will also get a behind-the-scenes look into how CAS connects the world’s science. They will present their research at ACS Fall 2024 in Denver, Colorado, and receive a three-year ACS membership.
Dr Usman is currently part of IFM’s Future Fibres group, where he focuses on understanding the chemistry of various nanomaterials such as metal oxides, metal organic frameworks (MOFs) and MXenes. He graduated with a PhD in 2023, with his work already being cited more than 900 times and has co-authored work with renowned researchers including MXene pioneer, Prof Yury Gogotsi of Drexel University, Prof Babak Anasori of Purdue University, and Prof Amanda Ellis of Melbourne University. He also was a visiting academic at Purdue University in 2023 where he shared his knowledge of MXene fibres with Prof Anasori’s research team.
Dr Usman is currently working alongside IFM’s Future Fibres theme leader and ARC Research Hub for Future Fibres Director Professor Joselito Razal, where he is mentoring PhD candidates as an associate supervisor.
“Dr Usman is an exemplar for the next generation of PhD candidates on how they can succeed in their PhD studies,” Prof Razal said.
“His research and leadership skills exemplify everything that an academic group needs to enhance its capacity and capability.”
Dr Usman said being named a CAS Future Leader has been a huge career highlight.
“In the next couple of years, I will be looking for opportunities to further widen my research network, hopefully securing research grants to continue my works and further mentor a new generation of students,” he said.
“I envisage that being a part of the CAS Future Leaders Program would allow me to further improve my leadership skills through the mentorship of distinguished researchers and opportunity to attend prestigious conferences like the ACS meeting.
“I am also really looking forward to meeting the alumni community of this program and hope to build a long term academical relationship and develop camaraderie.”
The 2024 CAS Future Leaders:
Aziz Abu-Saleh, University of Windsor, Canada
Noah Bartfield, Yale University, United States
Michelle Brann, Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, United States
Rosemary L. Calabro, U.S. Army DEVCOM Armaments Center and United States Military Academy, United States
Xiangkun (Elvis) Cao, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
Áine Coogan, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Chiara Deriu, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Madison Elaine Edwards, Texas A&M University, United States
Olga Eremina, University of Southern California, United States
Inès Forrest, Scripps Research Institute, United States
Patrick W. Fritz, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
Nabojit Kar, Indiana University Bloomington, United States
Stavros Kariofillis, Columbia University, United States
Joshua Kofsky, Queen’s University, Canada
Eric Kohn, University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States
Danielle Maxwell, University of Michigan, United States
Keita Mori, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan
Aditya Nandy, University of Chicago, United States
Akachukwu Obi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
Ernest Opoku, Auburn University, United States
Daisy Pooler, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Pragti, Indian Institute of Technology Indore, India
Stephanie Schneider, McMaster University, Canada
Ekaterina Selivanovitch, Cornell University, United States
Hanchen Shen, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China
Lilian Sophie Szych, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Alexander Umanzor, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, United States
Ken Aldren Usman, Institute for Frontier Materials, Deakin University – Waurn Ponds, Australia
Sara T. R. Velasquez, University of Twente, Netherlands
Gayatri Viswanathan, Iowa State University, United States
Kunyu Wang, University of Pennsylvania, United States
Athi Welsh, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Kyra Yap, Stanford University, United States
Yirui Zhang, Stanford University, United States
Junyi Zhao, Washington University in St. Louis, United States
Learn more about the 2024 CAS Future Leaders program.
About CAS
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