Caress Alumni Speaker: Malika Jeffries-EL PhD, Senior Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Boston University

Malika Jeffries-EL joined the faculty of the College of Arts & Sciences in 2016 as an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Division of Materials Science at Boston University. As of July 2020, she is the Senior Associate Dean of the Graduate School in Arts and Sciences.

Since joining BU, Dr. Jeffries-EL has been active in administrative leadership and departmental and university-wide service. She has experience with the intricacies of graduate affairs, serving as Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Chemistry since 2018, and was also a member of the Graduate Recruitment and Admissions Committee. A dedicated advocate for diversity and inclusion, she served on the University’s Recruitment Committee and on the CAS Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and she has worked on several projects to help increase the diversity and improve the support for graduate and postdoctoral scholars. In addition, Malika has also been a mentor for BU RISE and BU GROW.

Her research focuses on the development of organic semiconductors and their use in optical and electronic devices. She received BA degrees in chemistry and Africana studies at Wellesley College and Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in chemistry from The George Washington University. After spending one year at Smith College as a Mendenhall Fellow, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher under the direction of Professor Richard D. McCullough at Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to joining the BU Department of Chemistry in 2016, she was an Associate Professor at Iowa State University and a Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Professor in the Chemistry Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2015.

She, along with her role in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, is currently an Associate Editor for the Journal of Materials Chemistry C. She has authored over 40 publications, received over 3500 citations, and given over 100 lectures domestically and abroad. She was elected as a Fellow of the American Chemical Society and holds multiple additional honors for her research, her service to the field of chemistry, and her support of advancing diversity in the field.