Khalid Salaita has been named Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Chemistry effective September 1st, 2021.
The designation of distinguished professor is one of the highest honors that Emory bestows upon a member of its faculty and celebrates substantial contributions to Emory University’s mission to create, preserve, teach, and apply knowledge in the service of humanity.
Khalid grew up in Jordan and moved to the US in 1997 to pursue his undergraduate studies at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. He worked under the mentorship of Prof. Nancy Xu studying the spectroscopic properties of plasmonic nanoparticles. He then obtained his Ph.D. with Prof. Chad Mirkin at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) in 2006. During that time, he studied the electrochemical properties of organic adsorbates patterned onto gold films and developed massively parallel scanning probe lithography approaches.
From 2006-2009, Khalid was a postdoctoral scholar with Prof. Jay T. Groves at the University of California at Berkeley (USA) where he investigated the role of receptor clustering in modulating cell signaling.
In 2009, Khalid started his own lab at Emory, where he investigates the interface between living systems and engineered nanoscale materials. To achieve this goal, his group has pioneered the development of molecular force sensors, DNA mechanotechnology, smart therapeutics, and nanoscale mechanical actuators to manipulate living cells.
In recognition of his independent work, Khalid has received a number of awards prior to his distinguished professorship, most notably: the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowshipa monetary award provided to support a student’s education..., the Camille-Dreyfus Teacher Scholar award, the National Science Foundation Early CAREER award, and the Kavli Fellowshipa monetary award provided to support a student’s education....
Khalid is currently a member of the Enabling Bioanalytical and Imaging Technologies (EBIT) study Section and an Associate Editor of Smart Materials. His research has been supported by NSF, NIH, and DARPA. As a mentormay be used synonymously with P.I. or advisor. More broadly,... he has supported scholars who have been recognized as NSF-GRFP recipients, ARCS Scholars, NCI Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellows, and Reaxys Prize finalists, among many others.
Congratulations, Khalid!