Stache Named a Marion Milligan Mason Awardee
Assistant Professor of Chemistry Erin Stache has been selected a 2025 Marion Milligan Mason for Women in the Chemical Sciences awardee by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), one of just four women scientists honored from across the country.
The highly competitive award was announced this morning. It has been given bi-annually since 2015 to early-career women scientists whose work shows exceptional promise and potential for impact. Stache was selected on the basis of her proposal on her lab’s research into depolymerizing plastics: “Photothermal conversion enabled recycling of commercial polymers.” Her research will provide a blueprint for optimal plastic formulations to promote a cyclic plastics economy.
As part of the AAAS Inclusive STEMM Ecosystems for Equity and Diversity (ISEED) program, the award carries a $55K Kick Start grant along with opportunities for leadership development and mentoring. Stache will be feted at the AAAS annual meeting in Boston this coming February.
Assistant Professor of Chemistry Erin Stache in her lab.
“I was really excited to get this award,” said Stache. “The AAAS is one of the most prestigious scientific organizations in the country, and their premiere journal Science is a flagship journal for all of us. It’s just incredibly humbling and validating to be recognized by such an amazing organization.”
Travis York, director of Inclusive STEMM, said: “The Mason Award recognizes and celebrates the remarkable achievements of women in the chemical sciences. This award highlights the awardee’s dedication and innovation and underscores the vital contributions they, and other women, continue to make to shaping the future of science and society.”
While a scientist’s entire trajectory is taken into account as part of the selection process, Stache said her lab’s work on the use of carbon black—an abundant, commercial plastic additive—to depolymerize polystyrene is at the heart of it. In fact, her lab just published an account of this work in ACS Central Science last month.
“The proposal details this black plastic effect my group has been looking into and trying to understand. One direction I think this research needs to follow is asking questions like, what is the impact of all these additives on the depolymerization mechanism or efficiency? How does adding plasticizer affect photothermal depolymerization? Are there specific plasticizers or composite materials that hamper or promote it?
“Essentially we just want to understand systematically how these plastics depolymerize under our method so that we can design for smarter plastics.”
The awards are part of an AAAS bequest made by New Jersey resident Marion Tuttle Milligan Mason, a chemist and AAAS member from 1965 until her death in 2012. Milligan Mason’s bequest seeks to support the advancement of women in the chemical sciences and to honor her family’s commitment to higher education for women.
Award winners are chosen based on their intellectual merit, academic record and scholarly scientific study, scientific excellence and clearly articulated plan of study, demonstration of originality, initiative and productivity, references and potential for career enhancement as related to the proposed research.
The AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science, as well as Science Translational Medicine; Science Signaling; a digital, open-access journal, Science Advances; Science Immunology; and Science Robotics. AAAS was founded in 1848 and includes nearly 250 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals.
Read the AAAS announcement here.