The ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry Graduate Fellowship Program has endeavored to be a model of the benefits of cooperation between the academic and industrial communities. In this Program, chemical companies which employ Ph.D. analytical chemists sponsor fellowships (both nine-month and summer) for outstanding analytical graduate students. Companies benefit directly, by having access to the top graduate students in the discipline for recruiting purposes, and indirectly, by supporting students who will become analytical faculty and who will prepare future generations of analytical graduate students.
The first DAC Graduate Fellowship was awarded in 1949. This fellowship, sponsored by Merck & Company, provided a $2,500 stipend to support a full year of graduate study. Merck was the sole sponsor for several years. The recipients of these early DAC Fellowships contributed a great deal to the field of analytical chemistry following their graduate work; this list includes:
The record of these recipients sparked interest in expanding the Program. Professor Frank Karasek sought to increase the number of fellowships and convinced the ACS Analytical Division to take ownership in the awards by contributing Division funds to supplement the corporate funds. Horace McDonell, a former C.E.O. of the Perkin-Elmer Company, took a special interest in the Program and appealed to his colleagues at other instrument companies to suppport fellowships.
Summer fellowships were initiated in 1966, and additional nine-month fellowships were added in 1970. The Graduate Fellowship Program has had a distinguished list of sponsors, who not only provide the funds for the fellowship stipends but also appoint staff scientists to evaluate student applications and to select the fellowship recipients. DuPont and Procter & Gamble have been long-time fellowship sponsors. The Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh have supported multiple summer fellowships for many years. Eli Lilly and Eastman Chemical have sponsored fellowships for many years, while Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and the Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development have recently begun sponsoring fellowships. Dow, Perkin-Elmer, Olin, Gow-Mac and Beckmann Instruments have provided support for the Program in the past.
The Graduate Fellowship Program has benefitted from the leadership of those who have chaired the DAC Graduate Fellowship Committee. These individuals are:
Frank, Karasek and Rogers used their talents and influence in
the analytical community to organize the Graduate Fellowship Program
and to increase the number of sponsoring companies. However, with
the expansion of the number of awards it became important for
the chair of the committee to be a person not involved with graduate
education; since 1973 the chair has been someone whose primary
position was teaching undergraduate students.