Ian Lightcap, a former graduate student in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has won the prestigious Rohm & Haas Outstanding Graduate Student Award in 2012 for his thesis research. This award is made in recognition of his exceptional productivity in research.

Under the direction of Prashant Kamat at the University of Notre Dame, Ian's Ph.D. work on graphene-nanoparticle composites has led to a number of significant contributions in the field of energy conversion. He is now employed by the Center for Sustainable Energy at Notre Dame as a Senior Scientist and is responsible for the development and management of cSEND’s Transformative Solar Facility.

Rohm and Haas has had a long association with the University and the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. The main products of Rohm and Haas are specialty materials, advanced chemistry that allows end-use products to have a particular characteristic, e.g., low-odor, water-based paints, sunscreens with greater SPF functionality, or more powerful semiconductor chips.