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Adam Urbach receives national recognition, looks to bright future for �԰����� chem, STEM

As a scientist at a liberal arts university, Adam Urbach, Ph.D., walks a fine line between gathering new knowledge and sharing that knowledge with undergraduates.

That’s an important designation to make, because not every university gives professors the chance to conduct high-level research at the same time as making a high-level impact on their students’ lives. 

But that’s why Urbach, now in his 20th year with �԰�����’s chemistry department, came to campus in the first place.

“When I interviewed at �԰�����, I was immediately taken by how student-focused the faculty were, and by how excited they were about teaching, doing research, and especially doing research with undergraduate students,” Urbach recalls. “I saw �԰����� as an ideal fit for me because I loved to teach and was still very interested in research. It was clear that the combination of rigorous classroom and laboratory courses combined with undergraduate research creates the best possible chemistry education, and that �԰����� had the infrastructure and the culture needed to carry out high-quality research.”

And don’t let anyone from a large research institution tell you that �԰����� professors like Urbach can’t have it all—he’s just been named a 2023 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)—one of the most prestigious recognitions possible for U.S. scientists.

“For me, it was surprising to get the call from Dr. Peter Dorhout, former president of the American Chemical Society, who nominated me for the award, and it was humbling to be elected as a Fellow of the AAAS,” Urbach says of the honor. “For the chemistry department and the University, it is terrific to have the recognition of the AAAS for the quality of the research taking place here, research being carried out primarily by undergraduate students.”

Urbach, when he’s not leading courses in organic chemistry, chemical synthesis, medicinal chemistry, or supramolecular chemistry, is open for office hours in his corner of �԰�����’s Center for the Sciences and Innovation, where he’s just as fast to offer advice to students as he is to share a caffeine salvo from his espresso machine.

And in the lab, Urbach is just as high-powered. Along with his undergraduates, Urbach’s research areas include supramolecular chemistry, bio-organic chemistry, drug formulation, protein engineering, and biosensors. His research program has developed rules for predictably interacting with proteins, leading to applications in drug formulation, biosensors, surface chemistry, materials science, and nanoscience.

Just this spring, Urbach’s group of student researchers has been featured by not one, but two national chemistry journals.

In the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the group appears on the supplementary cover for its work on unfolded proteins, which have ramifications for many natural processes and diseases but have proved notoriously difficult to study. “Our paper,” Urbach says, “provides a way to both interact with unfolded proteins and to give them structure.”

The second journal, Chemical Science, is the flagship paper of the Royal Society of Chemistry, from the United Kingdom. Appearing on the outer back cover, Urbach’s team is noted for its work on the interaction between a small protein and a synthetic receptor. “Most proteins in our bodies are present only in very small concentrations, and the stronger we can interact with a protein, the lower the concentration we need to access it,” Urbach says. “Our paper provides a way to access proteins in a concentration range that is highly relevant in biology.”

As Urbach looks forward to another successful summer research session (a hotbed of hands-on, experiential activity for �԰����� students), he says �԰����� still feels like the perfect place to work with chemistry undergraduates, just as much as it did decades ago.

"After 20 years, I still love what I do, and I'm still fully committed to �԰�����’s mission,” Urbach says. “I have been fortunate to have outstanding students and colleagues, strong support from external funding agencies and from University administration, and some good luck in the research lab. This has been a great home, and I look forward to many more years at �԰�����.”