Jerzy Leszczynski

Jackson State University | Jackson, MS | 2007

Jerzy Leszczynski Portrait Photo

The official biography below was current at the time of the award. Awardees may choose to provide their latest biographical information on their profile page.

Jerzy Leszczynski recognized early in his career that successful mentoring was integral to an effective research program. He led the expansion of the Computational Chemistry Department at Jackson State University through the creation of a Ph.D. program which included formal and informal mentoring programs. The new programming resulted in an increase of African American and female students trained in computational chemistry methods. The program has grown to enroll approximately 50 students, more than 50 percent of which are African American. Seven students have already defended their Ph.D. theses. Three Ph.D. students from Dr. Leszczynski’s group were selected to participate in the meetings of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany.