Work in Chemistry Earns Packard Fellowship

Posted on Oct. 20, 2014

A Carolina faculty member has won the prestigious Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering for the third year in a row. James F. Cahoon, an assistant professor of chemistry, is the latest to receive the award given to researchers early in their careers. The award from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation is for $875,000 over five years.

The Packard Fellowships program seeks to invest in future leaders who have the freedom to take risks, explore new frontiers in their fields of study and follow uncharted paths that can lead to groundbreaking discoveries. It is among the nation’s largest nongovernmental fellowships.

Cahoon focuses his research on novel semiconductor nanomaterials. Semiconductors are used in a vast array of modern technologies, from solar cells that convert sunlight into electricity to microprocessors that drive computers. His work, using a multidisciplinary approach involving chemistry, physics, materials science and engineering, is expected to yield a new strategy for the design of electronics, optical circuits, solar energy devices and thermoelectric systems.

Recipients have gone on to receive awards, including the Nobel Prize in physics and MacArthur Fellowships, and to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.

Cahoon received bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and philosophy from the College of William and Mary and a doctorate in physical chemistry from the University of California-Berkeley. He did postdoctoral work at Harvard University before coming to UNC in 2011.