Professor Shelley Minteer is one of this year’s University of Utah Distinguished Research Awardees. Nominees are evaluated on the impact and significance of their career research and scholarly work to their field, as well as to the improvement and enrichment of the human condition.

Dr. Minteer’s career has focused on using nature as an inspiration and solution to chemistry problems. Her work has resulted in 17 issued patents and over 350 peer-reviewed publications using biology for designing for biosensensing, energy storage, envegy conversion, and electrosynthesis. Her research will directly impact how we are able to store wind and solar energy. She has been elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, received the Scientific American Top 50 Award, and an associate editor of JACS.

The Minteer Group researches bioelectrocatalysis, the biological catalysis of electrochemical processes, and is trying to mimic highly efficient processes in nature. They continue to further understand how living organisms consume food and do energy conversion to carry out daily activities. Recently, her research group developed a biofuel cell that employs mitochondria as the anode catalyst which is responsible for oxidizing fuel.