Fulbright-Tocqueville Distinguished Chair Award

Posted on January 22, 2016

Professor Timothy Deming has been awarded the 2015-2016 Fulbright-Tocqueville Distinguished Chair Award.

As a Fulbright-Tocqueville Distinguished Chair, Professor Deming will conduct a collaborative research project in France from February to July 2016. He will be hosted by Professors Henri Cramail, Director, and Sébastien Lecommandoux, Deputy Director, of the

Laboratoire de Chimie des Polymères Organiques

(LCPO) at the University of Bordeaux.

From the Franco-American Fulbright Commission announcement:

Professor Deming’s research seeks to develop practical, chemoselective methods for introduction of functional groups onto protein polymers. His project combines the expertise in protein biosynthesis and characterization at the lab in Bordeaux with the expertise in chemistry for selective polypeptide modification from his lab in Los Angeles. By working together, they expect to develop robust methods to prepare well-defined, selectively modified protein materials for a range of potential applications. The collaboration could result in significant advances for the practical synthesis of functional biopolymers, which will have realistic potential to impact many challenges in medicine and medical diagnostics.

In addition to his research project, Professor Deming will teach courses on bioconjugation and polymer chemistry, helping to develop future international collaborations and joint educational programs between the University of Bordeaux and UCLA. He will also lead several public conferences in cooperation with the Cap-Sciences Center and the

Fondation Bordeaux-Université

.
Timothy J. Deming received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Irvine in 1989, and graduated with a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, under Bruce Novak in 1993. After a NIH postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with David Tirrell, he joined the faculty in the Materials Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1995. Here he held a joint appointment in the Materials and Chemistry Departments where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 1999 and Full Professor in 2003. His appointment is now as Professor of Bioengineering and Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California Los Angeles. He served as the Chairman of the Bioengineering Department at UCLA from 2006 to 2011. He is a leader in the fields of polypeptide synthesis, self-assembly of block copolypeptides, and biological activity of polypeptides, for which he has received awards from the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, the Materials Research Society, and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry Macromolecular Division. He was recently named a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.
Logos The Fulbright-Tocqueville Distinguished Chair award was created in 2005 in commemoration of the bicentennial celebration of Alexis de Tocqueville’s birthday and the centennial celebration of Senator J. William Fulbright’s birthday. The award, the most prestigious offered by the Franco-American Fulbright Commission, aims to reinforce collaborative research between France and the United States in France. Since 2010, the chair position is open to all fields. Fields of specialization can include: public administration, arts, art history, cinema, law, economics, history, literature, philosophy, public policy, religion, international relations, political science, social sciences and the hard sciences. The Distinguished Chair is financed in part by the French Ministry of Education, Higher Education, and Research through an allotted visiting professorship for the host institution and in part by a complementary living allowance grant paid from Fulbright program funding by the Franco-American Fulbright Commission. The four-step selection process begins with a preselection conducted in the United States by a peer review panel, followed by independent expert evaluations carried out in France. The Chairs are then chosen by the Franco-American Fulbright Commission in Paris before being submitted for approval by the J. William Fulbright Board of Foreign Scholarships (FFSB) in Washington DC. The FFSB is composed of 12 members nominated directly by the President of the United States. Since its creation, 15 French universities have participated in this program to host a renowned American specialist. The following universities have received or will receive American Fulbright-Tocqueville Chairs : l’université de Bordeaux (2016), l’Université d’Aix-Marseille (2016), l’Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris (2015), l’Université Claude Bernard-Lyon 1 (2014), l’Université de Caen, Basse Normandie (2014), l’Université Paris Diderot – Paris 7 (2013), l’Université de Montpellier 2 (2012), l’Université de Poitiers (2012), l’Université Paris IV Sorbonne (2010), l’Université de Cergy Pontoise (2011, 2009), l’Ecole de Santé de Paris-Sud (2009), l’Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint Denis (2008), l’Université Paris Dauphine (2007), l’Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne (2013, 2006), l’Université François Rabelais à Tours (2006), l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences sociales (2006).