Michelle Brooks, Ph.D, Office of Higher Education at the American Chemical Society

The Department of Chemistry Presents, via Online and In-Person Presentation:  Dr. Michelle Brooks, Senior Manager, Office of Higher Education at the American Chemical Society

The Office of Higher Education, housed in the Education Division of the American Chemical Society, manages and administers the ACS Approval Program, the International Recognition Program, faculty development workshops, and independent projects focused on chemistry education. This seminar will provide an overview of the new ACS guidelines for approval, the new DEIR self-evaluation tool, and present a snapshot of the data describing the almost 700 ACS Approved institutions. These data include demographics of bachelor’s degree graduates, of current faculty members, as well as student placements following graduation, and average faculty salaries. We’ll talk briefly about some new initiatives coming out of the office, including a lab skills short course and new department chair workshops.

BIO

Michelle Brooks (she/they) received her Ph.D. in biophysical chemistry from Michigan State University, where she used pulsed EPR spectroscopy to study the electronic structure of cofactors involved in the electron transfer reactions in Photosystem I. As an NIH funded postdoc in Ann McDermott’s lab at Columbia University, she worked on using solid state NMR to investigate chemically induced nuclear polarization. Prior to coming to ACS, she was a faculty member at the College of Charleston and then a lecturer at the University of Maryland College Park; she transitioned to administration as the Associate Director of the Biological Sciences Graduate Program at UMD. She joined the staff at the ACS just over 5 years ago; her portfolio includes the ACS Approval Program, the ACS Recognition Program for Global Institutions, and the New Faculty Workshops, and she works closely with two-year colleges to develop guidelines for transfer students. She lives in Maryland with her partner and their two basset hounds, Boo Radley and Scout. In her spare time, she teaches yoga at the Circle Yoga Cooperative in DC.