University of Houston Chemistry Professor Honored with Prestigious Research Award

Ognjen Miljanic, professor of chemistry at the University of Houston’s College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, has received a prestigious and competitive Cottrell Plus SEED (Singular Exceptional Endeavors of Discovery) Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement.

Miljanic, who was one of 11 accomplished researchers chosen for SEED Awards for New Research Directions this year, was honored for his research “Putting Water to Work: Binding of Methane Hydrates in Cyclobenzoin Supramolecular Hosts.” Each award is $60,000.

“The SEED Award is a tremendous honor and a testament to the hard work and dedication of my research team,” Miljanic said. “This recognition fuels our commitment to pursuing effective strategies to bind methane, a greenhouse gas several dozen times more potent than carbon dioxide. In doing so, we hope to simultaneously push the boundaries of fundamental chemistry and search for methods to sequester carbon molecules from the atmosphere. This challenge is particularly pressing in Texas—a state which produces huge amounts of natural gas, but also disproportionally suffers from the effects of climate change.”

Miljanic, who arrived at UH in 2008, is a highly regarded researcher in chemistry whose previous work has focused on self-sorting of dynamic combinatorial libraries, porous materials, and fluorescent sensors. His lab, the Miljanic Group, provides graduate, undergraduate, and postdoctoral students with intensive training in supramolecular, synthetic, and materials chemistry.

The Research Corporation for Science Advancement is a private foundation that funds basic research in the physician sciences, including chemistry, physics, astronomy and related fields at institutions in the U.S. and Canada. The SEED Awards is one of several Cottrell Plus Awards that support Cottrell Scholars at various stages throughout their careers.