Karen L. Wooley

Karen L. Wooley is an American polymer chemist.She is a Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University whose research focuses on developing novel polymers and nanostructured materials.

Wooley received her B.Sc. in Chemistry from Oregon State University in 1988, and a Ph.D. in Polymer/Organic Chemistry in 1993 under the guidance of Jean Fréchet.

Karen L. Wooley is an international leader in the design, synthesis, characterization and implementation of polymers and nanostructured organic materials.She has published ca. 270 peer-reviewed articles in top-ranked scientific journals, holds several patents. For ten years (2005-2015), she served as Director of one of the four National Heart Lung and Blood Institute’s Programs of Excellence in Nanotechnology.She served as an advisor to the National Institutes of Health Nanomedicine Development Centers, the National Science Foundation-sponsored National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network, and the Dutch Biomedical Materials Program.Among other advisory roles, she has been a member of the NIH NANO study section, serving as Chair, 2012-2014.Karen holds the W. T. Doherty-Welch Chair in Chemistry and is a University Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University, where her research team is actively engaged in creative approaches to materials for nanomedicine applications, degradable polymers from natural resources, coatings for marine antifouling, advanced photoresist materials for the microelectronics industry, hybrid magnetic nanomaterials for environmental remediation, and other projects of fundamental and applied nature.

Wooley is currently an associate editor for the Journal of the American Chemical Society, among many other advisory roles within the broader scientific community.

In 2017, Wooley helped establish biodegradable plastics development company Teysha Technologies. Wooley, alongside the team at Teysha, has been working to develop biodegradable plastics from biomass stock. These plastics can be tuned to decompose within set timescales. The goal of the project is to develop a new, general purpose, seawater soluble plastics, to help address the problem of plastic pollution in the oceans.

In 2020, the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) selected Wooley as a 2019 NAI Fellow.

Wooley received the Royal Society of Chemistry's Centenary Prize in 2014, "For transforming the field of polymer chemistry through the adaptation of synthetic organic chemistry concepts and the concept of macromolecular engineering".

She has also received:

• National Young Investigator Award, National Science Foundation
• American Competitiveness and Innovation Award, National Science Foundation
• Polymer Chemistry award, American Chemical Society
• Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, American Chemical Society
• Herman F. Mark Scholar Award, Polymer Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society (2009)
• American Chemical Society Award in Polymer Chemistry (2014)