The College of Science congratulates UNT Chemistry professor Dr. Bill Acree for receiving the 2024 President's Council Service Award from the UNT Foundation and Faculty Success! This award recognizes a faculty member who demonstrates sustained excellence in mentoring undergraduate students, graduate students, and/or other faculty.

"I am deeply honored to be selected as this year's recipient of the 2024 President's Council Service Award," said Dr. Acree, who joined UNT as a faculty member in 1988. "Early in my academic career I found that performing service can be a very rewarding experience that benefits students, fellow faculty, and staff colleagues. I have made many friends along the way, and by listening to others I have gained new insights on shared faculty governance, leadership skills, and respecting and valuing the opinions and contributions of others, which has made me a better, wiser individual."

Dr. Acree's research interests involve developing quantitative structure-property relationships and linear free energy relationships of chemical, environmental, and pharmaceutical importance. He has derived expressions for predicting the solubility of drug molecules in water and in more than seventy organic solvents of varying polarity, for predicting the distribution of organic compounds and drugs between select tissue samples and blood, the toxicity of organic compounds to several aquatic organisms, and the solute partitioning between water and numerous organic solvents.

A prolific researcher, Dr. Acree has authored or co-authored more than 1,100 publications to-date. In further good news, he was also named a finalist for the 2024-2025 CUR-Goldwater Mentor of the Year for his excellence in mentorship.

"My one hope is that when I finally decide to retire others will say 'Bill helped make UNT a better place for students to learn and for employees to work,'" said Dr. Acree.

Dr. Acree will be honored at UNT's Salute to Faculty Excellence event taking place on April 26, 2024. This event is hosted each spring by Faculty Success and the UNT Foundation. For more information about the Faculty Excellence Awards and the 2024 winners, please visit https://vpaa.unt.edu/fs/recognition/SFE-winners-24