Castellano Receives NC American Chemical Society Distinguished Speaker Award

Felix “Phil” Castellano, Goodnight Innovation Distinguished Chair in the Department of Chemistry at NC State, has been awarded the 2023 Distinguished Speaker of the Year Award by the American Chemical Society’s North Carolina (NC-ACS) Section.

Castellano will be honored with the award and deliver a talk at the NC-ACS annual meeting and symposium in October in Durham, NC. NC-ACS is the Southeast’s oldest chapter of the American Chemical Society, which is dedicated to supporting scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry.

Castellano is a prominent photochemist who joined the NC State faculty in 2013. His groundbreaking research focuses on how molecules behave when they’re exposed to light, and then manipulating that energized state into something useful. His findings have implications for fields ranging from solar energy conversion to cancer treatment. 

Castellano was appointed as a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2015, earned the I-APS Award in Photochemistry in 2019, and was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2020. He is also the inaugural editor-in-chief of Chemical Physics Reviews, a peer-reviewed journal from AIP Publishing.

Castellano earned his bachelor’s degree from Clark University and his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University.