Dr. Gary Emmert has been awarded the College of Arts and Sciences Early Career Research Award.

The Early Career Research Award was initiated in the College of Arts and Sciences in 1989. Annually, the College confers the Early Career Research Award to up to three College of Arts & Sciences tenure-track faculty members who are in the early stages of developing their research programs. Candidates for the ECRA must have been employed full-time by the University of Memphis for no more than five academic years and be not more than eight years beyond receiving the terminal degree, prior to the semester of application. Nominations are made and awardees recommended to the Dean of the College by the Graduate Council for Research and Graduate Studies during the spring semester.

Dr. Gary Emmert, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry at Miami University of Ohio in 1999 and joined the faculty at the University of Memphis in 2002 following teaching at Arkansas State University and St. Lawrence University. Gary writes that his research career has focused on "drinking water chemistry, security water monitoring, the detection of improvised explosive devices,...and on-line real time monitoring of an industrial pollutant in Ireland."

His research has been very well supported by external funding from The American Waterworks Association, the EPA, MLG&W, among other funders. In her letter of nomination, Abby Parrill notes that Dr. Emmert's work "has provided a crucial link between the Chemistry Department and the Memphis community. Drinking water quality is a fundamental issue relevant both locally, and globally."

Dr. Emmert is highly published, with 16 peer reviewed papers, 2 peer reviewed technical report, and 4 conference proceedings. In his lab he has mentored many graduate and undergraduate students, and he places a high priority on his being Graduate Coordinator for the Department of Chemistry. The relevance of his work to is attested to by Stuart Krasner, Principal Environmental Specialist at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California when he writes "his team has developed rugged, sensitive, selective, accurate, and inexpensive on-line methods for both regulatory and emerging disinfection by-products of concern."

For more information about Dr. Emmert, please visit his profile.