University of Utah chemical engineering professor Marc D. Porter was named a fellow to the Council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society.
Porter, who also is a professor in the U’s Department of Chemistry, will be honored with the rest of this year’s new fellows during an induction ceremony Feb. 15, in Seattle. The AAAS has members in more than 91 countries and is also the publisher of the Science family of research journals.
He was elected for “distinguished contributions to the chemistry and physics of self-assembled monolayers and their application as nanotechnological constructs for the ultralow detection of infectious diseases and cancer.”
“I’m honored and indeed humbled by this election,” he said.
Porter received his bachelor’s in chemistry and a master’s in physical chemistry from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and a doctorate in analytical chemistry from The Ohio State University.
He was a chemistry professor at Iowa State University where he also was director of the Microanalytical Instrumentation Center and the Institute for Combinatorial Science. From 1997 to 2004, he co-founded the companies Advanced Analytical Technologies, Inc., CombiSep, Inc. and Concurrent Analytical, and he recently co-launched Porter Medical Technologies. In 2006, he became chemistry and biochemistry professor at Arizona State University where he also served as director of both the Center for Combinatorial Sciences at the Biodesign Institute.
Porter arrived at the University of Utah in 2007 as a USTAR professor of chemistry and chemical engineering. He also has an appointment as an adjunct professor of bioengineering and pathology. He is currently the director of the Nano Institute of Utah and the Utah Center for NanoBioSensors within the institute.
One other University of Utah professor, biological sciences Disgtinguished Professor John S. (Sandy) Parkinson, was elected to this year’s AAAS group.