Professor Heather Maynard has been awarded the Macrogroup UK Medal for Outstanding Achievement in recognition of her accomplishments in the field of polymer science.
This medal is awarded biennially to a scientist, from any country, who is recognized internationally for his/her continued, outstanding achievements in the field of polymer science. The Pure and Applied Macromolecular Chemistry Group (Macro Group UK) is a joint interest group of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Society of Chemical Industry. The group exists to encourage and enhance polymer chemistry in the UK by promoting meetings and fostering interactions.
Maynard will be awarded a medal and will deliver a medal award lecture at a Macro Group UK meeting in Fall 2022.
Maynard holds UCLA’s Dr. Myung Ki Hong Endowed Chair in Polymer Science. She is a worldwide leader in the area of protein-polymer conjugates, which are important therapeutics for a variety of diseases. She develops new synthetic methods to make the materials, invents new polymers to improve properties such as stability, and demonstrates preclinical efficacy of her conjugates with an eye towards translation for human health. Maynard also works in the area of smart materials for precision medicine: materials that respond to disease states in the body.
Maynard’s research and teaching have been recognized by numerous awards including the American Chemical Society Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, Fulbright Specialist Award, Seaborg Award, Bioconjugate Chemistry Lectureship Award, Hanson-Dow Award for Excellence in Teaching and the UCLA Student Development Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award. Maynard is both an American Chemical Society Polymer Chemistry and Polymer Materials: Science and Engineering Fellow. She is also a Leverhulme, Kavli Frontiers, and Royal Society of Chemistry Fellow, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was a member of the United States Defense Science Study Group from 2016-2017. In February 2021, Maynard was elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows and in August 2021, she was elected a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
Maynard is Director of the National Institutes of Health funded Chemistry Biology Interface (CBI) Training Program and Associate Director for the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. She is also the co-Director of the new $23.7 million NSF funded BioPACIFIC Materials Innovation Platform at UCLA and UCSB. In February 2021, Maynard was named an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS).
To learn more about Maynard’s research, visit her group’s website.
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penny@chem.ucla.edu.
