Ed Gillan was promoted to full professor in May 2023. He has been with the University of Iowa Department of Chemistry since 1997 and was promoted to associate professor in 2003. Gillan's most recent honors and awards include: University of Iowa Faculty Senate Vice President (2022-23), President (2023-24), UI Participant in the Big 10 Alliance's Academic Leadership Program (2022-23), Associate Editor for Frontiers in Chemistry (2022-Present), and an Editorial Board member for Catalysts and Frontiers in Chemistry.

"Our research program exploits reaction thermochemistry in the examination of moderate-temperature, sometimes very rapid, decomposition routes to produce inorganic materials with unusual structural, morphological, and physical properties.  Conventional solid-state synthetic methods rely on high temperatures to facilitate chemical reaction between relatively stable and inert starting materials. These are very successful and form the core of many commercial materials growth processes, but they are generally limited to the production of thermodynamic phases with long-range structural order and crystallinity (~ 100 μm dimensions).  New shorter or less harsh approaches to materials syntheses are highly desired to exploit advantages of compositional and size control of solid-state materials at atomic and nanoscale levels to produce useful micrometer or nanometer-sized products," he said. 

The Gillan group is pursuing several materials chemistry research directions.  A few broad research goals are listed below.  Please see the Gillan Group research website for more specific information."