Professor Jessica R. Lamb

Prof. Jessica R. Lamb graduated summa cum laude with her B.S. in Chemistry from the University of North Dakota (2012). She performed undergraduate research on organometallic chemistry in the lab of Professor Irina Smoliakova. During the summers, she worked in the lab of Professor Victoria Johnston-Gelling in the Coatings and Polymeric Materials Department of North Dakota State University. She then moved to Ithaca, NY for graduate school at Cornell University with Professor Geoffrey Coates as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. During graduate school, she developed bimetallic catalysts for the selective carbonylation, isomerization, and deoxygenation of epoxides. After completing her PhD in 2017, she was an National Institutes of Health Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Fellow in Professor Jeremiah Johnson's group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she studied oxygen-tolerant radical polymerization and photochemistry. Jessica started at the University of Minnesota as an Assistant Professor in the summer of 2020. The Lamb group uses the tools of physical organic chemistry and catalysis to gain mechanistic insight and solve major challenges in polymer chemistry. While at UMN, she has been the recipient of the 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award, the ACS Division of Professional Relations (PROF) Leadership Development Award, the AAAS Marion Milligan Mason Award, and the McKnight Land-Grant Professorship.

Honors and Awards

University of Minnesota McKnight Land-Grant Professorship, 2025-2027

AAAS Marion Milligan Mason Award, 2025

ACS Division of Organic Chemistry Young Investigator, 2024

3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award, 2022
Finalist for the Hanwha Total-IUPAC Young Polymer Scientist Award, 2022
ACS Division of Professional Relations (PROF) Leadership Development Award, 2021
NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2018–2020
Philanthropic Education Organization Scholars Award, 2016
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, 2013–2017