Release date: April 13, 2005
Contact: Beverly Cox Clark, Assistant Director, University Media Relations,
at 404-712-8780 or beverly.clark@emory.edu

Emory Chemist Receives Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship

Emory University's James Kindt, assistant professor of chemistry, has been awarded a competitive Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship. Kindt is among 116 young scientists and economists selected as 2005 Sloan fellows, representing faculty from colleges and universities in the United States and Canada who show the most outstanding promise of making fundamental contributions to new knowledge.

Kindt works in the area of theoretical and computational chemistry to study the inner workings of biological systems. His highly interdisciplinary research brings together aspects of physical chemistry, cell biology and soft-condensed matter physics, with potential applications for pharmaceutical design and new nanotechnology materials.

Currently, Kindt's research group designs, writes and uses computer programs that simulate the structures that form when molecules stick together. Depending on the shapes and chemical natures of the molecules, they may spontaneously assemble into droplets, worm-like cylinders, sheets or any number of other structures. Many of these are important in biology, like the membranes that are found at the surface of a cell. Kindt's lab is working to uncover the basic principles that give these forms their shape and size, with the long-range goal of predicting the combination of molecular structure and experimental conditions to create these assembled forms at will.

The Sloan Foundation Research Fellowships allow scientists to continue their research with awards of $45,000 over two years, and fellows are free to pursue whatever lines of inquiry are of most interest to them. The fellowships were established in 1955 to provide support and recognition to early-career scientists and scholars who are working to set up laboratories and establish their independent research projects.

Kindt is a resident of Decatur (30030).

Emory University is known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate college of arts and sciences, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities. For more than a decade Emory has been named one of the country's top 25 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, the state's largest and most comprehensive health care system.

Back