Prof. Dorian A. Canelas

Prof. Dorian Canelas has over a decade of experience teaching introductory and organic chemistry, incorporating online platforms for course management, homework, and testing. She is the author of more than 15 peer-reviewed research publications and has received prestigious awards, including the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award in 1997. Her research interests span chemical education, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and the development of macromolecules for industrial and biological applications, such as microelectronics, drug delivery, imaging, blood compatibility, and biofilm inhibition. She earned a B.S. in chemistry from Northeastern University in 1993 and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During her undergraduate studies, she worked with Dr. Larry F. Hancock in industry on step growth polymerizations for membrane modifications to improve blood compatibility for dialysis and artificial organs. Her graduate and postdoctoral research, under Prof. Joseph M. DeSimone at UNC, focused on environmentally friendly solvents, new surfactants, dispersion polymerization in supercritical carbon dioxide, and polymer particles for siRNA delivery. After completing her Ph.D., she spent five years at Lord Corporation in Cary, NC, working on thermosets for coatings and microelectronics before returning to academia at North Carolina State University in 2003. Since 2009, she has been at Duke University, where she focuses on advancing undergraduate science education pedagogies.