Colón named standout Latino for 2024 by NBC News

Luis A. Colón, SUNY Distinguished Professor and A. Conger Goodyear Professor in the Department of Chemistry, has been highlighted by NBC News as a standout Latino for 2024.

Colón was recently included on the network’s list of 10 Latinos who received major recognition this year and whose Hispanic heritage proudly informs their expertise, outlook and commitment to making things better. 

Crafted to mark Hispanic Heritage Month, the list also includes California Surgeon General Diana E. Ramos, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cristina Rivera Garza, NBA player and social justice advocate Karl-Anthony Towns and recent Emmy winner Liza Colón-Zayas.

“My inclusion on this list is indeed a great honor that took me for surprise. Being named alongside this extraordinary group of honorees feels surreal,” Colón says.

Describing him as “a scientist and the ultimate mentor,” NBC News selected Colón for his commitment to advancing diversity in the chemical sciences.

Colón has spent decades recruiting and encouraging students from his native Puerto Rico and other places to pursue advanced science degrees, recommending them for jobs and fellowships, and paying their way to conferences when financial resources were scarce, the NBC News story notes. As a result, Colón’s students have gone on to jobs in research and academia, corporations and in the pharmaceutical industry. 

Colón was recognized for this work in a major way this year, receiving the 2024 Lifetime Mentor Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. One peer who nominated Colón for the award estimated that more than one-third of faculty members from underrepresented groups hired in chemistry departments in recent years have a connection to Colón’s program or those it inspired.

“If I was somehow able to contribute a little crystal of sand as they went along their way, I’m very happy about that,” Colón told NBC News. “I am actually proud that out of all my students, I still maintain some relationship or connection with at least 90% of them, even if it’s only a Christmas card or a phone call.”

In addition to the NBC News recognition, Colón was recently selected as one of 18 Latin American researchers recognized by Chemical & Engineering News in their 2024 “Trailblazers” issue, which celebrates diversity in the world of chemistry.

Colón received the 2016 American Chemical Society Award for Encouraging Disadvantage Students into Careers in the Chemical Sciences, and in 2015 was named by then-President Barack Obama as a recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring.

Since joining UB in 1993, Colón has directly mentored 51 graduate students, the majority of whom hail from underrepresented groups, and more than 100 Hispanic American students have taken part in his summer internships, a model that several other institutions have replicated.

He is currently co-principal investigator on a $500,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation that expands a longstanding STEM graduate program pipeline between UB and his alma mater, the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey.