The Virginia Tech Department of Chemistry will welcome Professor Shabnam Hematian as a new associate professor in the 2025-2026 academic year.

Hematian comes to Virginia Tech from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Before this, she received her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, studying under Professor Kenneth Karlin. She then completed a postdoctoral research position with the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis at CalTech. Since starting her academic career, Hematian has won numerous awards, including the NSF CAREER Award, an NIH Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA), and the DOE Early Career Award.

"Any one of these awards would mean that you're succeeding—having all of them means you're a leader in your field," says Chemistry Department Chair Amanda Morris. "We are excited to welcome Shabnam to the Hokie Chemistry Family."

Hematian will contribute to Virginia Tech Chemistry's research foci in Energy Chemistry and Drug Discovery. Her research investigates the use of bioinorganic and materials platforms to activate and convert small molecules and tackle key issues in catalysis, sustainability, and renewable energy. She is also a pioneer in the field of metalloproteins, where she has uncovered structural and mechanistic information about a new class of copper enzymes, BURP domain cyclases.