The award recognizes researchers who have made exceptional contributions to the field in roughly the first decade of their careers.  The criteria include the creativity and impact of the researchers’ work as well as service to the professional community. 

Sarazen, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, studies a range of material platforms to drive more effective and efficient industrial chemical reactions, ultimately in search of new ways to reduce the environmental harms of manufacturing chemical and fuel products. Sarazen’s work has advanced the understanding of metal-organic frameworks and zeolites, catalytic materials that can be finely tuned to make broad swaths of the manufacturing sector more sustainable. More recent work has focused on plasma-assisted catalysis, a promising avenue to make renewable energy a reliable power source for industries that still rely mainly on fossil fuels. 

Sarazen is an associated faculty member in the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, Department of Chemistry, High Meadows Environmental Institute and Princeton Materials Institute. She currently serves as the spring program chair for ACS Catalysis Division and a director for the Catalysis Society of Metropolitan New York. She previously won the Augustine Award from the Organic Reactions Catalysis Society, an NSF CAREER Award, and was named to the 35 Under 35 list from the American Institute for Chemical Engineers. In 2021, she received the Howard B. Wentz, Jr. SEAS Junior Faculty Award and the Princeton Engineering Commendation for Outstanding Teaching. She earned her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from University of California-Berkeley and joined the Princeton faculty in 2019.