UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry faculty members, postdoctoral scholars, and students will be receiving awards, presenting their research, and participating in a variety of events at the American Chemical Society (ACS) Fall 2026 National Meeting, Aug. 23–27, 2026, at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago.
If you are attending the meeting, we encourage you to stop by, connect with members of the UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry community and learn more about the exciting research taking place in the department.
Here are some upcoming highlights of the meeting. For more details, visit the ACS Fall 2026 Schedule website.
Distinguished Professor Michael Jung, UCLA’s Walter and Shirley Wang Chair in Medicinal Drug Discovery, will receive the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry (MEDI) 2026 Gertrude Elion Medicinal Chemistry Award in recognition of his impact on medicinal chemistry and drug discovery. He will also give an award address titled “Academic drug discovery: Some continuing stories” on Monday, August 24, from 4:40 – 5:20 pm CDT, in Room S105d.
Professor Anne Andrews will receive the 2026 ACS Analytical Chemistry Division Award in Electrochemistry in recognition of her accomplishments and service. She will also give an award address titled “Advancing electrochemical neurotransmitter monitoring” on Monday, August 24, from 5:15 – 5:50 pm CDT, in Room S405b.
Professor Soumitra Athavale will be honored at the 2026 ACS Talented 12 Award program and will give a talk titled “Imbuing Iron Enzymes with Precious-Metal Reactivity” on Monday, August 24, from 2:45 – 2:55 pm CDT, in Room W190b.
Distinguished Research Professor Kendall Houk
will give a talk at the Fraser Stoddart Memorial Symposium titled “Discovering chemistry with Fraser Stoddart: Understanding reactivity”
on Tuesday, August 25, from 8:45 – 9:15 am CDT, in Room W196C.
Congratulations to the Chemistry & Biochemistry graduate students who have been selected for ACS awards! Caitlyn Fick (Srivastava group) will receive the ACS Recognition of Excellence and Leadership Award for Leadership in Inclusion and Belonging, while Charlotte Ellis-Keeler (Schmitt group) and Ismail Yasar Kokculer (Doyle group) will receive the ACS Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Scholars Recognition Program for Leadership in Science Advocacy Award. The awards will be presented Monday, Aug. 24, from 8:00 – 10:00 a.m. in Room S403a.
Below is a chronological list of UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry faculty members, postdoctoral scholars and students who are giving talks and presenting posters. Listed times are Central Daylight Time (CDT). For more details, visit the ACS Fall 2026 Schedule:
MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 2026
- Professor Xiangfeng Duan: Oral Presentation: “Operando electrical transport spectroscopy of electrode–electrolyte interfaces.” Monday, 8:06 – 8:28 am, Room W192a.
- Professor Anastassia Alexandrova – Oral Presentation: “Supported cluster electrocatalysts: Fluxionality, ensemble nature, and methods of stabilization.” Monday, 9:34-9:56 am, Room W192a.
- Professor Anastassia Alexandrova – Oral Presentation: “Catalytic interfaces in and out of equilibrium.” Monday, 10:30-10:55 am, Room: N230b.
- Professor Craig Merlic – Oral Presentation: “The 2008 UCLA laboratory accident: What happened, what changed, and what still needs to be done.” Monday, 10:40 am-11:00 am, Room: W190b.
- Professor Giulia Palermo – Oral Presentation: “Graph attention networks to decode molecular dynamics simulations.” Monday, 11:20-11:40 am, Room: W181b.
- Flora Fan (Graduate student – Doyle group) – Presenting Poster: Future Pharma Innovators (FPI) Poster Session – #D06 – “Phosphine-Photoredox Catalysis for Regioselective Hydroamination.” Monday, 12:00-2:00 pm, Room: Hall F2 – POSTERS.
- Professor Matthew Nava – Oral Presentation: “Reversible bond insertion reactions facilitated by metal-ligand cooperativity in main group complexes.” Monday, 2:40-3:00 pm, Room: S103d.
- Professor Soumitra Athavale – 2026 ACS Talented 12 Award address: “Imbuing Iron Enzymes with Precious-Metal Reactivity.” Monday, 2:45-2:55 pm, Room: W190b.
- Distinguished Professor Michael Jung – ACS MEDI 2026 Gertrude Elion Award address: “Academic drug discovery: Some continuing stories.” Monday, 4:40-5:20 pm, Room: S105d.
- Professor Craig Merlic – Oral Presentation: “Avoiding the next fire: Lessons learned from incidents with high hazard reagents.” Monday, 5:10-5:35 pm, Room: N226.
- Professor Anne Andrews – 2026 ACS Analytical Chemistry Division Award in Electrochemistry address: “Advancing electrochemical neurotransmitter monitoring.” Monday, 5:15-5:50 pm, Room: S405b.
- Caitlyn Fick – (Graduate student, Srivastava group) – Presenting Poster: #1953 – “Stabilization of complex coacervate emulsions by comb polyelectrolytes and their applications as enzymatic reactors.“, Monday, 8:00-10:00 pm, Room: Hall F2 – POSTERS.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 25, 2026
- Professor Xiangfeng Duan – Oral Presentation: “Talking to molecules with 2D atomic layers.” Tuesday, 8:00-8:25 am, Room A2 – SOUTH HALL ChemPod 5.
- Professor Chong Liu – Oral Presentation: “Chemistry-infused bandit framework for interpretable autonomous campaign of nanomaterials-based electrocatalysis.” Tuesday, 8:00-8:30 am, Room: S504d.
- Distinguished Professor Kendall Houk – Fraser Stoddart Memorial Symposium: “Discovering chemistry with Fraser Stoddart: Understanding reactivity.” Tuesday, 8:45-9:15 am, Room: W196c.
- Professor Philippe Sautet – Oral Presentation: “Active sites heterogeneity in catalysis.” Tuesday, 9:00-9:30 am, Room: W196b.
- Jing-Ran Shan (Graduate student – Garcia-Garibay & Houk groups) – Poster Presentation: Division of Computers in Chemistry (COMP) Poster Session- #1170 – “Free Molecular Rotors in Crystalline Porous Materials: Terahertz Rotation, Inertial Behavior, and Langevin Dynamics.” Tuesday, 6:00-8:00 pm, Room: Hall F2 – POSTERS.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 2026
- Professor Timothy Deming – Oral Presentation: “Active control of peptide assembly using coacervate forming polypeptides.” Wednesday, 10:40-11:10 am, Room: W193b
- Caitlyn Fick (Graduate student – Srivastava group) – Poster Presentation: #1395 – “Stabilization of complex coacervate emulsions by comb polyelectrolytes and their applications as enzymatic reactors.” Wednesday, 12:00-2:00 pm, Room: Hall F2 – POSTERS.
- Anastassia Alexandrova – Oral Presentation: “Strongly heterogeneous and dynamic intra-protein electric fields as drivers of enzymatic catalysis.” Wednesday, 3:45-4:15 pm, Room: W187c.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 2026
- Dr. Chinmai Pindi (Postdoctoral Scholar – Palermo group) – Oral Presentation: “Design rules for expanding PAM compatibility in CRISPR-Cas9 from molecular mechanics and causation inference.” Thursday, 8:00-8:20 am, Room: W181a.
- Professor Philippe Sautet – Oral Presentation: “Towards an accurate modeling of heterogeneous catalysis.” Thursday, 9:50-10:20 am, Room: W179b.
- Professor Giulia Palermo – Oral Presentation: “From mechanism to design: Deep learning-driven engineering of adenine base editors.” Thursday, 10:40-10:55 am, Room: S106a.
- Dr. Chinmai Pindi (Postdoctoral Scholar – Palermo group) – Oral Presentation: “Hidden mechanisms of TnsC filament assembly in CRISPR-associated transposons revealed by deep learning and molecular simulations.” Thursday, 10:55-11:10 am, Room: S106a.
- Professor Giulia Palermo – Oral Presentation: “Interpretable deep learning and causal inference decipher mechanisms of RNA-guided transposition.” Thursday, 11:40-11:55 am, Room: W184bc
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penjen@g.ucla.edu.
