Julie Champion, an associate professor in Georgia Tech's School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, is a recipient of a 2021 Rising Star Award from the American Chemical Society's Women Chemists Committee.

This award recognizes exceptional early- to mid-career women chemists across all areas of chemistry on a national level. The award was established in 2011 to help promote retention of women in science.

The winners will receive a stipend to cover expenses for an award symposium to highlight their work at the virtual National Meeting of the ACS on April 7, 2021.

The Women Chemists Committee (WCC) serves the membership of the American Chemical Society with its mission to be leaders in attracting, retaining, developing, promoting, and advocating for women in the chemical sciences.

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 150,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences.

Champion, who earned her PhD at the University of California, Santa Barbara, joined the faculty of Georgia Tech's School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in 2009.

Her research interests include:

• Developing therapeutic protein materials, where the protein is both the drug and the delivery system
• Engineering proteins to control and understand protein particle self-assembly
• Repurposing and engineering pathogenic proteins for human therapeutics
• Creating materials that mimic cell-cell interactions to modulate immunological functions for various applications, including inflammation, cancer, autoimmune disease, and vaccination
• Learn more about Champion on her lab Website.