Chemistry associate professor named one of this year's Cottrell Scholars

A national research foundation has awarded an IU chemistry professor a $100,000 scholarship.\nAssistant professor Mu-Hyun Baik was named one of this year's 13 Cottrell Scholars by the Tucson-based Research Corporation.\nThe award is given out to promising junior faculty members in the physical sciences. Eligibility is also restricted to professors in the third year of their first tenure-track appointments, according to a press release.\n"It gives us great pleasure to recognized the promise of Professor Baik as a teacher-scholar with this award and to join with Indiana University at Bloomington in support of the development of this young scientist," James M. Gentile, president of the Research Corporation, wrote in a letter to IU President Adam Herbert, according to the release. \nThe Cottrell scholarship will fund Baik's project "toward a quantitative understanding of diastereoselective carbocyclizations thorough quantum chemical modeling." \nBaik will use the funds from the scholarship for both research and teaching functions, according to the press release. His research investigates an area of organic chemistry related to drug discovery and development. He also helps advanced chemistry students understand how individual atoms in organic molecules interact during dramatic chemical changes. \nAccording to the Research Corporation's Web site, the competition for Cottrell Scholarships is "keen." The success rate has been 10 to 15 percent and proposals are reviewed through a three-tiered process that includes the Research Corporation staff, an advisory committee and its board of directors. This year only 13 Cottrell Scholars were named. \nBaik is the second faculty member at IU's campus to receive the award in the past several years. Andrew Feig, an assistant professor in the chemistry department, was awarded the grant in 2002. \nThe Research Corporation is a private foundation which aims to advance scientific research.