Leckband elected inaugural ACS Fellow

Deborah E. Leckband, chemical and biomolecular engineering, is one of four University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign faculty members elected in the first class of fellows to be honored by the American Chemical Society. 

Leckband, the Reid T. Milner Professor of Chemical Sciences, studies the interface between biology and surface science. Her work determines how the physical chemical properties of surfaces impacts fundamental biological functions and material performance in biological environments, including how cells communicate with their environment.

After earning her BS from Humboldt State University and PhD from Cornell University, Leckband served postdoctorates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of California, Santa Barbara. She is also a Fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).

At Illinois, Leckband holds faculty appointments in the Department of Chemistry, the Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology, and the Department of Bioengineering. She is a research professor at the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory and an affiliate of the Department of Biochemistry and the Department of Physics.

With more than 154,000 members, the ACS is the world’s largest scientific society. A nonprofit organization chartered by Congress, ACS is at the forefront of the evolving worldwide chemical enterprise and the premier professional home for chemists, chemical engineers and related professions around the globe.

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Contact: Deborah Leckband, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, 217/ 244-0793.

If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, Engineering Communications Office, 217/244-7716, writer/editor.