(Press-News.org)
A Cal Poly chemistry professor is among three U.S. university faculty to be awarded the national Jack Flack Norris Award for outstanding teaching in chemistry by the American Chemical Society.
Dr. Phil Costanzo is being recognized for his work with the Macromolecular Alliance for Community Resources & Outreach (MACRO), a joint service committee of two American Chemical Society divisions: Polymer Chemistry (POLY) and Polymeric Materials: Science & Engineering (PMSE).
The award celebrates MACRO’s outstanding achievements in chemistry education and its extensive, sustained impact on the polymer education community. Founded in 2019 by chemistry professors Elizabeth Sterner (Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania), Dominik Konkolewicz (Miami University in Ohio) and Costanzo, MACRO has emerged as a national leader in developing freely accessible educational, outreach, and professional development resources for polymer chemists at all career stages. Each of the three professors who founded MACRO is among this year’s Jack Flack Norris Award honorees.
Costanzo’s work has included broad educational outreach through guidance for K-12 instructors and higher education teachers providing developmental instruction.
“There are people who now need to teach polymer science who have never taken a class in polymer science,” Costanzo said. “That can be intimidating. So, we'll help people develop full curriculum at a high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels.”
Polymer science focuses on the study of substances composed of very large molecules that are formed chains of repeating groups of atoms. Examples of polymers include plastics, rubber and nylon. Resource materials include educational videos, lesson plans and events that can be replicated by a teacher.
“Many people want to do outreach but don’t know where to start,” Costanzo said. “The (MACRO) repository breaks it all down step by step: how to plan it, what supplies you need, how to fundraise. We do things like this all the time, and now we have this incredible opportunity to share that with other people.”
Costanzo said that effective chemistry instruction at developmental levels is perhaps the greatest influence for students to pursue higher education degrees and careers in the field.
“Probably the most important thing is that we can grab people at the early stages, at K-12, and then continue to assist them until they're full colleagues,” Costanzo said. “It really is the whole audience, and it's circular: you start at the beginning, and when you're done, you actually have the opportunity to create and add your own content.”
The Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society (NESACS) will present award on Nov. 13, 2025, to the three honorees at Simmons University in Boston, Massachusetts.
The James Flack Norris Award is the first national award to recognize outstanding achievement in the teaching of chemistry. The award was established in 1950 by NESACS to honor the memory of James Flack Norris, a professor of chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recognizing dedicated teachers of chemistry at any level whose efforts have had a wide-ranging effect on chemical education.
Additional details are available regarding the James Flack Norris Award on the NESACS website at www.nesacs.org. For press inquiries about NESACS, contact Jack Driscoll at pidguy@aol.com and Jennifer Maclachlan at pidgirl@gmail.com.
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