Elizabeth Sterner, Philip Costanzo, and Dominik Konkolewicz to receive the 2025 James Flack Norris Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Teaching of Chemistry

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society (NESACS) will present the 2025 James Flack Norris Award to:

Elizabeth Sterner

Professor of Chemistry

Lebanon Valley College, Annville, PA

Philip J. Costanzo

Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA

&

Dominik Konkolewicz

Miami University Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Miami University, Oxford, OH

The Macromolecular Alliance for Community Resources & Outreach (MACRO), a joint service committee of the ACS Divisions of Polymer Chemistry (POLY) and Polymeric Materials: Science & Engineering (PMSE), will be recognized at the upcoming NESACS Awards Banquet on Thursday, November 13, 2025, at Simmons University in Boston, MA. This recognition celebrates MACRO’s outstanding achievements in the teaching of chemistry and its deep, sustained impact on the polymer education community.

Founded in 2019 by Drs. Elizabeth Sterner, Philip Costanzo, and Dominik Konkolewicz, MACRO has emerged as a national leader in developing freely accessible educational, outreach, and professional development resources for polymer chemists at all career stages. Through their coordinated efforts across Curriculum, Outreach, and Professional Development, MACRO has established a robust portfolio of high-impact initiatives—from modular teaching resources aligned with ACS certification requirements to national symposia, live webinars, and a widely used repository of instructional materials on their website, macro-poly-pmse.org.

MACRO’s work is also reaching classrooms across the country. At the Spring 2024 ACS National Meeting in New Orleans, MACRO hosted a dedicated half-day session focused on K–14 education and provided funds to distribute over 100 activity kits to educators, helping bring hands-on science into classrooms. Their website continues to serve as a global resource, with more than 300 unique users in the past year, and much higher traffic during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Their national ACS symposia—now four in total—have featured over 40 oral presentations and brought together educators from K–12 through higher education, private industry, and ACS leadership. These efforts have demonstrated a sustained impact on the polymer science community and are worthy of recognition with the 2025 James Flack Norris Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Teaching of Chemistry.

The James Flack-Norris Award is the first national award to recognize outstanding achievement in the teaching of chemistry. Established in 1950 by NESACS to honor the memory of James Flack Norris, Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a teacher of great repute, the award recognizes dedicated teachers of chemistry at any level whose efforts have had a wide-ranging effect on chemical education. This year’s award celebrates these three champions of chemistry education research who have had a significant impact on the advancement of student-centered, active-learning approaches for teaching in the chemical sciences and STEM more broadly.

For further information on the James Flack Norris Award, contact Lori Ferrins (l.ferrins@northeastern.edu). Additional details will be available on the NESACS website, www.nesacs.org.