Baylor Chemist Earns Coveted National Science Foundation CAREER Award

Canada-native, Dr. Caleb D. Martin, assistant professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry has received a prestigious 2018 Faculty Early Career Award from the National Science Foundation.

Contact: Whitney Richter, Director of Marketing and Communications, Office of the Vice Provost for Research, 254-710-7539
Written by: Gary Stokes, Office of the Vice Provost for Research

WACO, Texas (March 5, 2018) – Baylor assistant professor of chemistry and two-time Rising Star researcher Dr. Caleb D. Martin recently received notice of his selection to receive a 2018 Faculty Early Career Development Program grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Known as CAREER awards, the grants are the most prestigious awards made by the NSF and are given in support of early-career researchers who, according to the Program’s website, “have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.”

“Caleb is an outstanding young faculty member, as evidenced by his selection to the Rising Stars program and this CAREER award,” said Baylor Vice Provost for Research, Dr. Truell Hyde. “I have no doubt he will continue to excel as he moves forward in his career as a prominent member of the chemistry department.”

The five-year, $650,000 grant is funded through the NSF’s Chemical Synthesis Program in support of Martin’s research into synthesizing analogues of benzene containing boron. This class of materials is considered to have the potential to improve the durability and performance of organic photovoltaic (OPV) solar cells and organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) used in such devices as smart phones, TVs and tablets. Conventional inorganic systems are rigid and brittle while their organic counterparts, OLEDs and OPVs, can be made flexible. In addition to having other possible applications, Martin sees his work as having the potential to help bring electrical power to millions of people living in remote or underdeveloped regions.

“Already today . . . if you go camping, you can unroll a flexible organic solar panel and charge your phone or charge your battery. You can’t do that with inorganic solar devices because they are not flexible,” Martin says. “There’s a significant world population that doesn’t have access to energy, and it currently is not feasible to set up a grid in many areas. If you are in a Third World country, the benefits of a durable and portable energy source are enormous.”

Other anticipated applications for Martin’s research lie in the electronics, defense and energy sectors as well as in the pharmaceutical industry, which has developed a few successful boron-based therapeutic compounds. Dr. Kevin Chambliss, associate dean for research and graduate education at Baylor, sees the award as both recognition of Martin’s abilities as a researcher, and due in part to the nascent potential of boron chemistry as an emerging field.

“Virtually all junior faculty in the sciences aspire to receive an NSF CAREER award, which indicates exceptional promise of an investigator in research, education and public outreach,” Chambliss says. “Caleb’s work on novel, boron-containing materials is being recognized nationally as an important innovation in synthetic chemistry.”

NSF CAREER awards also carry an educational component aimed at stimulating interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines among middle and high school students. Underprivileged youth are a special focus.

Even before receiving his CAREER award, Martin and the Martin Research Group, which he founded and heads, had teamed with “The Cove,” a local non-profit agency that serves area students who are homeless and comprised primarily of minority populations, all groups that are generally underrepresented in the STEM fields.

“I involve my research group — the graduate students and undergraduate students — in the outreach. I think they find it useful, rewarding, and enjoy the experience. Now they do most of the effort in organizing, getting all of the supplies, and coming up with new experiments and demonstrations for the students,” Martin said.

The members of Martin’s group also realize the importance of the social aspects of outreach, and they strive to relate to the students personally. “Sometimes when you’re growing up, your social bubble doesn’t expand very far. Normally, they probably wouldn’t get to informally interact with someone like me or the students from the group, so we always try to make time to interact with them,” he said. “And I think it’s beneficial for the students that we’re visiting not only to see a professor, but to see people who are at various stages in their education and closer to their own age.”

Martin sees the CAREER award as an expression of confidence in his potential as a researcher, but he is first and foremost a professor.

“You have to keep the big picture in mind,” he said. “Inevitably, my contribution to science is only going to go so far. But hopefully at an educational institution you educate students who also make contributions, and that’s really how you can make the most difference; you have people who go on and do bigger and better things. I hope to help students be as successful as they are capable of being, give them a good experience, solid educational foundation, and help them utilize the time they’ve had in graduate school to form their research mind to succeed beyond their time at Baylor.”