Gustavus Adolphus College

Dwight Stoll doing work in his laboratory.

Gustavus Adolphus College Assistant Professor of Chemistry Dwight Stoll has been selected to receive a prestigious Faculty Start-Up Award for 2008 from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation in New York. Stoll is one of eight individuals to receive this $30,000 unrestricted grant given to faculty members beginning their first full-time academic appointment in the chemical sciences to help initiate their independent research programs.

Stoll, who will begin his first year of teaching at Gustavus this fall, plans to use the award to support the development of a new technique that will allow scientists to analyze low levels of important molecules in environmental and medical research.

“The Dreyfus Faculty Start-Up Award will provide exciting opportunities for students and will boost my own professional development as I begin my career at Gustavus,” Stoll said. “The award will provide critical support to my research students as they pursue cutting-edge problems in collaboration with researchers at the University of Minnesota, and allow them to travel to conferences to present their results on a national stage.”

Specifically, Stoll and his students will collaborate with researchers at Gustavus and the University of Minnesota who are studying the breakdown products of common personal care products (such as hand sanitizers) and agricultural chemicals (such as pesticides) and the effects of those products on various lakes and rivers in Minnesota.

Stoll and Gustavus students will also work with a University of Minnesota expert in lung diseases to better understand the causes of common lung diseases such as emphysema and chronic rejection after lung transplantation.

Stoll attended Minnesota State University, Mankato where he obtained a B.S. in plant biology and biochemistry. He went on to earn his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in analytical chemistry. Stoll served as a visiting instructor at St. Olaf College during the 2005-06 academic year. More recently he was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota in the departments of biochemistry, molecular biology, and biophysics.

The purpose of the Camile and Henry Dreyfus Foundation is to advance the science of chemistry, chemical engineering, and related sciences as a means of improving human relations and circumstances. Since its founding in 1946, the foundation has contributed more than $100 million to support these fields.