Biography

Angela K. Wilson is the John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Michigan State University. She is also the Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives in the MSU College of Natural Sciences and the Director of the MSU Center for Quantum Computing, Science, and Engineering (MSU-Q).

She recently served as the Director (head) of the Division of Chemistry at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). At NSF, her responsibilities included overseeing the division’s portfolio totaling over $245M/yr, and leading the strategic direction and national funding priorities in chemistry for NSF.

Prior to this role, she was the Associate Vice Provost for Faculty at the University of North Texas (UNT), a university of nearly 40,000 students. In this role, she was head of UNT’s Office of Faculty Success, leading professional development opportunities for UNT’s 2,400 faculty members and 58 department chairs. She led development of University policies and procedures related to faculty, developed programs to address faculty climate, and facilitate, encourage, and recognize faculty success.

At UNT she was Regents Professor of Chemistry and Founder and Director of the Center for Advanced Scientific Computing and Modeling (CASCaM), which grew to nearly one hundred researchers and ultimately, brought in approximately one-third of the university’s externally funded dollars. She spent two years as a Faculty Fellow in UNT’s Office of the Provost, and, also spent ten years as graduate advisor for the Department of Chemistry, working with over one hundred graduate students per year, and spent six years as Assistant Chair of the Chemistry Department. She has also been a strong proponent of students (described in the Education and Training section).

She earned a Ph.D. in chemical physics from the University of Minnesota and a B.S. in chemistry from Eastern Washington University. She was then a postdoctoral fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. She completed MBA coursework in organizational behavior, management, and accounting at the University of Oklahoma, and has participated in significant professional leadership training such as via the Institute for Management and Leadership in Education at the Harvard Institute for Higher Education, the Big Ten Academic Alliance Academic Leadership Program, American Council on Education (ACE) National Women’s Leadership Forum, and Leadership Texas. She now serves as a facilitator for the American Chemical Society’s Leadership Development Program.

Among her national and international honors are Fellow of the American Chemical Society, Fellow of the American Physical Society, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, National Associate of the National Academies, Francis P. Garvan-John M. Olin Medal (ACS), International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) Distinguished Woman in Chemistry, and the Wilfred T. Doherty Award (ACS Dallas-Ft. Worth Section).

She is presently Chair of the Chemistry Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Counilor for the American Chemical Society, representing the Division of Physical Chemistry, and is on the editorial board of Scientific Reports and on the editorial advisory board of Cell Reports Physical Chemistry. She has served as President of the Division of Physical and Biophysical Chemistry of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), as Editor for Computational and Theoretical Chemistry, and on the editorial advisory boards for the Journal of Physical Chemistry (ACS), Pure and Applied Chemistry, and the International Journal of Quantum Chemistry.

Among her >160 publications are publications on the professional development of faculty and department chair development and strategies (i.e., transition planning, mini-sabbaticals, and tiered mentoring approaches).

Her computational chemistry methodologies are utilized worldwide.