ChemE Alum Ben Magruder, B.S. ‘20, was awarded the prestigious Schmidt Science Fellowship earlier this year. The Schmidt Science Fellowship is awarded to promising early-career scientists who are looking to pivot to a new area of study. The goal of this fellowship — which is awarded annually to roughly 30 researchers from around the world — is to promote world-class interdisciplinary science.
As a UW Chemical Engineering student, Magruder was an undergraduate researcher in the Hillhouse Research Group, led by Dr. Hugh Hillhouse. There, he worked with Dr. Felix Eickemeyer, a former visiting scholar, to identify more sustainable materials for solar cells (which make up solar panels). For this research, he was awarded a Mary Gates Research Scholarship in 2018 and an Undergraduate Fellowship from the Washington Research Foundation in 2019. He graduated magna cum laude with his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering in 2020.
Magruder went on to earn his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. Though he changed direction in his doctoral research, pivoting to work on computational polymer physics, “the lessons I learned in the Hillhouse group gave me an invaluable head start in the practice of academic research,” he says.
As a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge, Magruder started to pivot again – this time away from polymer physics towards biochemistry. Specifically, Magruder began to study how neurogenerative diseases start at the molecular level. The Schmidt Science Fellowship will support Magruder in continuing this transition.
“The Schmidt Science Fellowship gives me the chance to dive headfirst into a whole new discipline and really push the limits of what I can get out of my postdoc,” Magruder says.
UW ChemE is celebrating Magruder's accomplishment. "The Schmidt Fellowship is incredibly prestigious and such an outstanding recognition of the impactful work Ben is doing,” Dr. Elizabeth Nance, department chair and one of Magruder’s former professors, says. “Ben built a strong foundation in chemical engineering during his bachelor’s degree here at UW and in his research in Professor Hillhouse's Lab. Now, he is leveraging his fundamental training in thermodynamics and kinetics to tackle complex, interdisciplinary problems in neurodegeneration — spanning chemical engineering, materials science, biochemistry and neuroscience.”
Both the research opportunities and the coursework Magruder pursued at UW continue to support his work today. Classes led by Dr. Stuart Adler and Dr. John Berg both inspire and inform his current work. He also sites a project with Dr. Lilo Pozzo, opportunities in the Unit Operations Lab, as well as his minor in English as building his capacities in leadership, innovation and science communication.
More broadly, he says, “the intellectual environment in UW ChemE inspired a wonderful sense of scientific curiosity in me that has only continued to grow ever since.”
Long-term, Magruder will pursue a career as a research professor. He plans to “lead a lab that reflects the interdisciplinarity of these research experiences and takes full advantage of the diverse toolkit that I am currently building,” he says. “The Schmidt fellowship is an extraordinary opportunity, and words truly cannot describe my gratitude and excitement.”
Originally published May 29, 2026