Chemical biology graduate student AJ Addae (Paul S. Weiss group) has won Northeastern University’s first place Women Who Empower Women Innovator Award, and second place in Powering Diverse and Inclusive Communities of Belonging Award.
Launched in 2021, the Women Who Empower Innovator Awards recognize “bold, creative changemakers in Northeastern’s vast entrepreneurial ecosystem” and provide them with capital, resources, and networks to elevate their ideas, products, businesses, and brands. The program recognizes and celebrates the innovators themselves—not just their idea or venture.
Addae graduated from Northeastern in 2020 with a biology major with minors in English and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies.
Before coming to UCLA, Addae founded SULA LABS, a research and development laboratory that specializes in developing and clinically testing cosmetics for individuals with darker skin tones. She joined UCLA’s chemical biology graduate program in 2022, working in the group of Professor Paul S. Weiss, where she is studying the surface functionalization of metal oxide-based UV attenuators at the nanoscale for use in sunscreen formulations. Her work in the Weiss lab has recently resulted in a publication and journal cover in Accounts of Materials Research titled ‘Standardizing the White Cast Potential of Sunscreens with Metal Oxide Ultraviolet Filters’.
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penny@chem.ucla.edu.
