Karen L. Wooley

Wooley holds the W. T. Doherty-Welch Chair in Chemistry and is a Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University, with appointments in the Departments of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering. She completed undergraduate study at Oregon State University (1988), graduate study at Cornell University (1993), and the first sixteen years of her independent academic career on the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis. She relocated to Texas A&M University twelve years ago (July 2009). Research interests include the synthesis and characterization of degradable polymers derived from natural products, unique macromolecular architectures, complex polymer assemblies, and well-defined nanostructured materials, with emphases on the design and development of materials that address societal, medical, technological and/or environmental advances. In 2020, she was awarded Fellowship to AAAS, AIMBE, and NAS, and she is the 2021 SEC Professor of the Year.