Theodor Agapie Named Cottrell Scholar

Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) has named Theodor Agapie, an assistant professor of chemistry at Caltech, a 2013 Cottrell Scholar.

The Cottrell Scholar Awards were instituted by RCSA in 1994 to recognize early-career individuals for innovative research and teaching excellence. The awards are named in honor of scientist, inventor, and philanthropist Frederick Gardner Cottrell who, in 1912, founded the organization that came to be known as RCSA.

"I am honored to have been selected as a Cottrell Scholar by RCSA," says Agapie. "I am grateful to my team of researchers and the greater Caltech community for a rewarding and stimulating environment in which to do science."

Using the natural world as a source of inspiration, Agapie's research group studies and develops molecular systems to solve problems related to energy, materials, and health. In addition to his lab-based research, Agapie actively works to bring together graduate, undergraduate, and high school students through an outreach program that includes career mentoring, designing new experiments, and organized visits to the Caltech campus.

Agapie, a native of Romania, received his bachelor's degree from MIT in 2001 and his PhD from Caltech in 2007. He has been an assistant professor at Caltech since early 2009. Since joining Caltech's faculty, Agapie has been named a Searle Scholar, a Sloan Research Fellow, and a recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and he has received the Award in Pure Chemistry from the American Chemical Society.