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Sylvia Ceyer

Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

About me

Sylvia T. Ceyer is the J. C. Sheehan Professor of Chemistry and former Head of the MIT Department of Chemistry. She received her B.A. degree in chemistry from Hope College, Holland, MI and her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. She joined the MIT faculty in 1981 and has taught classes in first year chemistry, quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, kinetics, solid state chemistry and reaction dynamics. At MIT, she has been awarded the A. Smith Award for Meaningful Contributions and Devotion to Undergraduate Student Life and Learning, the MacVicar Faculty Fellowship, the School of Science Teaching Prize, and the Baker Memorial Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Her research interests are centered on reaction dynamics at material surfaces that serve either as catalysts, as templates for nanosystems, or as devices. She is a fellow of the National Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Physical Society. Her numerous awards and honors include the J. Willard Gibbs Medal of the American Chemical Society, the Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education (with A. D. Johnson) from the American Chemical Society, and the Hope College Distinguished Alumni Award.