Join the College of Science for our first installment of our Faculty Lecture Series, highlighting the outstanding scholarly work of COS faculty and bringing the UNT community together to discuss breakthroughs and educational advancement in science and mathematics.
We are proud to welcome Dr. Mohammad A. Omary, a University Distinguished Research Professor of Chemistry, Physics, and Mechanical & Energy Engineering to share with us his work and research at the Faculty Lecture Series taking place in the Union Lyceum at 4 pm on April 25.
Dr. Omary's engaging lecture is titled, Chemistry: The Fun Science that Enables a World of Modern Apps.
Everyone within the UNT community and beyond are invited to take part in enjoying the lecture (apx 25 minutes long), and a College of Science staff & faculty reception will take place afterwards.
Dr. Omary specializes in the design of molecular metal-organic materials for energy-related and biomedical applications based on advances in fundamental sciences. His research includes molecular design and optimization of phosphorescent materials for energy-saving lighting, video display, and selective imaging of cancer cells; photovoltaic materials for solar energy harvesting; molecular semiconductors for electronic devices; metal-organic frameworks for energy and environmental applications; and non-toxic plasmonic nanoparticles for photothermal therapy of cancer and for drug delivery. He has received several awards including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2004) and the I-APS Young Investigator Award of the Inter-American Photochemical Society (2006, sole awardee among all organic and inorganic photochemists in North and South America). Dr. Omary has been a lead investigator on grants and contracts valued at more than $15 million mostly from the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Science Foundation (NSF), Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), State of Texas' Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), and the Robert A. Welch Foundation. His work has resulted in 537 research products (113 peer-reviewed publications; 32 patent disclosures; 256 conference proceedings; 101 invited seminars; supervised 35 Ph.D. or Master's degrees). His h-index is currently 45 (35 since 2011) and i-10 index is 77 (66 since 2011) with 16 papers receiving at least 100 citations, 40 papers at least 50 citations, and total citations ~5600 times (~2500 since 2012; ~1400 in 2015-2017). Dr. Omary earned his Ph.D. from the University of Maine specializing in inorganic spectroscopy (Advisor: Howard H. Patterson), then became a faculty fellow at Colby College, followed by post-doctoral training at Texas A&M University(Advisor: John P. Fackler, Jr.) before starting his independent career at the University of North Texas (UNT) in 2001, where he obtained early tenure and promotion to Associate Professor and then, after serving only two years, early promotion to Full Professor, and most recently (September 2014) became the youngest Distinguished Professor at UNT at 44 years old. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Comments on Inorganic Chemistry. Omary also has a distinguished mentoring experience, having supervised 182 mentees (65 graduate students, 94 undergraduate or high-school students, and 23 visiting/research professors or post-doctoral scholars).
