University Professor Eugenia Kumacheva has been honoured with one of this year’s prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships. Offered annually since 1925, the grants support mid-career professionals who have shown exceptional capacity as scholars or artists, and who continue to produce transformative work.
Her research explores the field of “soft matter” — that is to say, polymers, colloids, liquid crystals, hydrogels and living matter. She has designed and developed soft materials for use in an extraordinarily broad range of areas: these have included telecommunications, security, data storage, drug delivery and tissue engineering.
A native of Ukraine, Officer of the Order of Canada and first Canadian winner of the L’Oreal-UNESCO Prize for Women in Science, Kumacheva is now collaborating with Professor Alán Aspuru-Guzik to combine her expertise with artificial intelligence, in order to fuel the development of innovative anti-cancer therapies.
“The Guggenheim Fellowship is a mark of recognition and one of the great career achievements for a scientist,” says Kumacheva. “It will support the collaborative research with Professor Alán Aspuru-Guzik, with an ambitious goal to accelerate anticancer drug discovery.”
Kumacheva joins three other researchers at U of T to be recognised with a fellowship this year.
“We are thrilled that four members of our Faculty are receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship," said Melanie Woodin, dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science. "This is an incredible career achievement for a scholar, and it will allow them each to continue their important work in their respective areas of focus.”