SERMACS 2009 Regional Awards

Cornelia Gillyard is Professor of Chemistry at Spelman College, where she has taught for thirty-two years. During this time, Dr. Gillyard has served in various administrative capacities, including Department Chair, Associate Provost for Science Programs and Policy, Director of the Health Careers Program, and Director of Spelman’s Women in Science and Engineering program. Her work with the ACS has been equally important. She has served in several roles, particularly with Women Chemists Committee and the Committee on Minority Affairs. Dr. Gillyard’s work has been recognized with the Spelman College Presidential Award for Outstanding Service and the NOBCCHE Henry C. McBay Outstanding Teacher Award. Cornelia Gillyard 's involvement with students includes classroom teaching, mentoring, academic advising and in directed research. She has mentored more than thirty students in directed research; twenty-three of these students have gone on to earn advanced degrees, including six PhD’s , three PhD candidates, six MD’s,  three DDS degrees, one PharmD graduate and five M.S. degrees.  Gillyard’s formal mentoring activities also include service with several programs, including the NASA Women in Science and Engineering (WISE Scholars), the ACS Scholars Program and the ExxonMobil Scholars Program. The NASA WISE Scholars Program has served more than 320 Spelman women; more than fifty per cent have earned graduate and professional degrees including three recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists (Monica Cox, PhD, Assistant Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University,  Adrienne Stiff Roberts, Assistant Professor  of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University and Chekesha Bradford Liddell, PhD, Assistant Professor of Material Sciences at Cornell University. Liddell is one of Gillyard’s former research students at Spelman College.  Other PhD  recipients include three graduates of the ACS Scholars Program.