Professor wins research award
Lance Seefeldt, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at USU, said he became “addicted” to research as a graduate student at the University of California. Now, 25 years later, he has been named the recipient of USU’s D. Wynne Thorne Career Research Award.
Named for the first vice president for research at USU, the D. Wynne Thorne Award is the highest honor awarded to faculty researchers.
“This is really a career-topper,” said Mark McLellan, vice president for research and dean of the School of Graduate Studies. “This is to recognize the cumulative effort of a researcher that has really gone all out and really produced a very special effort and received national and international recognition — someone who has really knocked it out of the ballpark.”
Seefeldt said the biggest feeling that comes from receiving the award is humility.
“It’s very humbling to be selected, especially knowing the legacy of D. Wynne Thorne, as well as the people who have received the award in the past,” he said. “It’s humbling to be a part of them, especially knowing the quality of the science that goes on at USU. To be selected among my peers is an incredible honor.”
Each year, every department on campus has the opportunity to nominate a faculty member for the award. After the nominations are completed, a board of faculty peers meets to select the winner, McLellan said. After someone has been selected, he or she must be approved by both McLellan and President Stan Albrecht.
“You’re looking for someone who is really engaged, who has met the expectations of their job and then gone well beyond,” McLellan said. “They are recognized by their peers for extraordinary contributions — making groundbreaking discoveries or very insightful interpretations of the science.”
Seefeldt said his research focuses on ways to retrieve nitrogen from the air.
“The core project we have been working on is a really fundamentally important one to all life on Earth,” he said. “(It) turns out the air you’re breathing right now is about 80 percent nitrogen. You and I have to have nitrogen. It’s an essential part of our amino acids, our proteins, our DNA.
Seefeldt said even though nitrogen is both common and necessary for life, obtaining the element in a usable form can be difficult.
“It’s just really hard to get our hands on it, even though we’re swimming in it. We have all this nitrogen around us, but we can’t do anything with it. So, for the last 20 years, we’ve been trying to understand how we can get our hands on this molecule.”
At its core, Seefeldt said the research is incredibly fundamental science. However, the impacts of his team’s findings have the potential to be far reaching.
“We’re interested in the practical aspects, to see how it can better society and, really, to alleviate hunger. In the West, we don’t have a big problem with this, but in many parts of the world, you have people who are starving for protein — the nitrogen that is in the protein,” he said. “We’re interested in this process on a grander scale.”
Kevin Hengge, chemistry and biochemistry department head, said one of the key attributes looked for in making annual nominations for the award is the impact a researcher’s work has had on progress in his or her respective field.
“Lance’s work is highly visible to the scientific community,” Hengge said. “How often someone is cited is a direct and objective measure of the impact that our published research has.”
McLellan said Seefeldt’s skills as a writer and researcher have led to his success. The articles he publishes lead to national and international attention, which leads to more funding, which, in turn, provides further opportunities for research.
“It’s one thing to do great work, but unless you follow up and share that work, it’s like having a light under a basket,” McLellan said.
In the past four years, three recipients of the Career Research Award have been from the chemistry and biochemistry department. Hengge said he sees that as not only a sign of the current strength of the department but also a sign of its future strength.
“It means that a significant fraction of our faculty are very prominent in their fields. That’s a significant benefit to the graduate program,” he said. “This is something that prospective graduate students look at — a program with faculty that has national prominence. It shows that we have prominent scientists here.”
Hengge said the faculty’s current success and recognition will lead to continued success in the department as students learn from the professors.
“These guys aren’t just scientists, they are mentors,” he said. “The graduate students who work in these labs are getting world-class training.”
McLellan said he thinks it is important for institutions to recognize the significant efforts made by their faculty.
“This is as close to the Academy Awards as you get. This is the Academy Awards of academia in terms of the institution,” he said. “It’s a chance to say that for a career-long effort we’re stopping to recognize you for superior performance. It’s very special.”
McLellan referenced the 2002 Best Picture winner, “A Beautiful Mind,” as an example of simple but appreciated recognition. In the film, Russell Crowe’s character, John Nash, is nominated for a Nobel Prize. His colleagues give him a set of personalized pens.
“It was simply an extraordinary statement saying, ‘You are special. You are among the best of the best,'” McLellan said. “I think it’s important for institutions to pause and to recognize excellence and performance that stands out.”
Seefeldt said his love of research and continued learning was instilled in him while he was in graduate school.
“I got addicted to this idea of pushing the frontier of knowledge,” Seefeldt said. “If you can get out of the classroom where you’re just being fed a lot of facts and get past that — because you do need those — and get addicted to the thrill of pushing forward knowledge and embrace that.”
“Today we may make a discovery that no one else ever knew,” Seefeldt said. “Then we share it in papers and in meetings and it becomes a part of the body of knowledge that other scientists will build off of.”
– megan.allen@aggiemail.usu.edu