Original interview by: Raymond Blackwell, “One on one with Sherine Obare,” Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), February 22, 2021.
In this interview with Raymond Blackwell for Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), Sherine Obare—dean of the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering—shares her journey from a curious student influenced by a great chemistry teacher to a pioneering researcher and academic leader. She discusses the importance of interdisciplinary science, environmental applications of nanotechnology, and the value of working across academic boundaries to solve complex global problems.
Sherine Obare was the chair of the division from 2022-2023, an ACS fellow and dean of the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Obare’s graduate research focused on detecting lithium ions and understanding lithium-ion gradients in batteries, which led her to an interest in environmental chemistry. Her postdoctoral work focused on the role of nanomaterials in the environment and their potential applications.
As a faculty member, she continued her research on the role of nanomaterials in addressing environmental issues and understanding their impact on the environment. Obare is now passionate about educating and training students to work across disciplinary boundaries, as she believes it is essential for addressing complex problems in the world.
“I continue to be inspired by the importance of interdisciplinary research and ways of thinking and finding ways to help others work effectively across disciplinary boundaries. For example, when I was in grad school, students were supposed to be quite subdisciplinary—you could be an organic chemist or an inorganic chemist or a physical chemist or an analytical chemist. When I was a graduate student, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work in a lab where there were no formal boundaries, and this provided me and my lab mates with important ways of thinking. Today, we see how important it is to educate and train students to work across boundaries—and not just chemistry boundaries, but across the sciences and engineering and even the social sciences.”
Sherine Obare, Ph.D. “One-on-One with Sherine Obare.” Chemical & Engineering News, February 22, 2021.