Munira Khalil

Professor Munira Khalil began her 5-year appointment as Chair of the Department of Chemistry on July 1, 2020. As she ends her term and plans to return to her primary faculty role, the impact of her leadership on the department and the University has been profound. She has set a new model for departmental leadership in the Sciences, where the Chair need not be a faculty member at the end of their career but rather a leading scientist who sees the value in supporting their academic community as an important part of their career trajectory. She has an exceptional combination of talents, thinking deeply and creatively about science, experimental methodologies, and leadership. We believe she is the ideal candidate for the David Thorud Leadership Award, and her selection would benefit the University broadly.

Khalil’s leadership has been responsive to multiple stakeholders, emphasized equity, nurtured an inclusive department culture, and provided programmatic innovations by establishing new mechanisms for the department functioning, which will endure beyond her term as Chair. She began her leadership role at the start of the pandemic within a landscape where the two former Chairs had just retired and were no longer present in the UW ecosystem. The Department of Chemistry is large, complex, and has a tremendous institutional impact. Chemistry boasts over 1,000 declared majors and awards approximately 350 undergraduate Chemistry and Biochemistry degrees each year. Over 6000 UW students take Chemistry courses each quarter. Their graduate programs are vibrant, with over 250 PhD students and approximately 50 students in their M.S. in Applied Chemical Science and Technology program. UW Chemistry averages $30M per year in federal R&D funding. Khalil’s first significant challenge was helping the department navigate the pandemic, with its attendant challenges to instruction and laboratory-based research. Khalil led the department’s strategic response to the pandemic and held the community together – an astonishing achievement in the most trying times.

In 2022, while serving as Chair, UW nominated Khalil for the inaugural 2022 Brown Science Foundation Investigator Award. She prevailed in this Award on the strength of her commitment to developing new optical tools to synthesize quantum coherence in molecular systems. This has been a decades-long Holy Grail of chemical physics research worldwide. Her research group leads the world in developing techniques to measure coherently coupled motions of vibrations and electrons in condensed-phase systems. The Brown Foundation agreed with our assessment and awarded her one of four $2M awards, with the other awards going to researchers at Princeton, Stanford, and Columbia. None of the other laureates appear to carry significant administrative duties concurrently with their research.

Early in Khalil’s term, she undertook the daunting task of leading the department through a significant staff reorganization to increase efficiency and provide equitable service to all their students and faculty. The new model consolidated all the grant support in the finance division (under pre- and post-award grants managers) and has resulted in much better management and oversight of grant submission and compliance procedures. This reorganization created a landscape that allowed the department to approach Workday Finance far better prepared than other units. Historically, the shared governance structure in the Department consisted of the Chair aided by Associate Chairs for Undergraduate and Graduate Education and faculty committees. Since 2020, Khalil has made a deliberate and successful effort to involve a larger group of faculty in department governance. This focus on inclusivity has substantially increased the number and diversity of voices at the table and has helped to develop the next generation of department leaders.

The existential issue facing the department relates to the antiquated facility in which it is housed – Bagley Hall. This building no longer meets the requirements of modern science. From day one, Khalil has been at the front lines of dealing with the myriad challenges this physical space imposes upon the department, its faculty, students, and staff. She has been the department’s lead in the efforts to build a new Chemical Sciences Building. Indeed, Khalil’s contribution to this effort has been so vital that we have a plan for her to continue to be the department lead in this ongoing effort after her term as Chair ends.

A central part of every Chair’s role is to support existing faculty through promotion and tenure, retain the best faculty, and recruit new faculty. This is yet another area in which Khalil excels and serves as a model for others. The Chemistry department’s promotion process and Professor Khalil’s Chair letters are regularly held up each year by the College Council as a model for other departments and Chairs to try to emulate. Over the last 4 years, under Khalil’s leadership, we have successfully retained faculty who have had offers from Princeton, Rice (twice – with different faculty), Wisconsin, and a very well-funded new private Chinese University. The department’s recent recruitment of tenure-track and teaching-track assistant professors has been tremendously successful. She also writes some of the very best letters supporting Chemistry faculty nominations to the Office of Research’s Limited Submissions Committee. During her time as chair, an impressive list of Chemistry faculty have received highly prestigious awards such as the Sloan and Packard fellowships.

CAS Associate Dean for Personnel Peter Denis first met Munira Khalil when she accepted the role of Chair of Chemistry. They were immediately thrust into a highly contentious personnel matter that could have had deleterious consequences for the individuals involved and potential legal issues for the institution. They weathered the matter under Khalil’s calm hand and arrived at a reasonable place for all. Throughout the many weeks they went back and forth on this issue, Khalil never wavered in her commitment to do what was right, what was ethical, and what was in the best interests of all concerned. The pattern of clarity of focus and preternatural focus on doing what was right has been a constant in all dealings with Khalil. Last spring, when the academic student employees (ASEs) occupied her office, she was present in the Dean’s office in the Communications Building. She expressed deep-seated concern for her staff and the chemistry faculty and expressed compassion for the ASEs. She is a leader in the truest sense of the word. By her actions and unflagging commitment to her constituents and stakeholders, she has shown that she values them, their work, and the mission to which she has devoted so much skill and energy.

We are happy to support her nomination for the David Thorud Leadership Award. In our view, Munira Khalil absolutely exemplifies the core values that underly this prestigious award.

Sincerely,

Daniel Pollack, Divisional Dean for Natural Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences

Peter Denis, Associate Dean for Personnel, College of Arts & Sciences

Stephen Majeski, Senior Associate Dean for Research and Infrastructure, College of Arts & Sciences

Linda Nelson, Associate Dean for Finance and Administration, College of Arts & Sciences