Monica So
Monica So is a Professor of Chemistry at California State University, Chico. As a native Californian, she grew up in Corona, where there were once more lemon trees than people. Yearning for a change in scenery, she moved all the way to UCLA, where she earned her B.S. in Organic Materials Chemistry while researching under Prof. Benjamin Schwartz as a Gates Millennium Scholar. She then earned her Ph.D. in inorganic materials chemistry at Northwestern University working under Prof. Joseph Hupp as a National Defense Science & Engineering Graduate Fellow, developing a novel automated liquid phase technique for depositing thin films of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Working simultaneously at Argonne National Lab, she investigated the light absorption and energy transfer behavior of MOF thin films using steady state and transient fluorescence spectroscopy. Since July 2015, she has taught and mentored over 1,000 undergraduate students as Professor of Chemistry at California State University, Chico. Her philosophy as a research mentor is to have students develop a sense of ownership over their work, think about their science strategically, and appreciate scientific communication. Her work on investigating charge and energy transfer behavior of novel MOFs has resulted in 25+ publications with >3000 citations and over $3.3M of funding from U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund, Agriculture Research Institute, and the Dreyfus Foundation. When Monica is not busy saving the world in the lab or classroom, she enjoys kitchen chemistry (e.g. cooking vegetarian-friendly dishes), exploring the interface of art and chemistry (e.g. acrylic painting), and strengthening familial bonds (e..g. playing Pokémon Go with her husband Stewart and reading with her daughter, Anya).