Academic honoured for exceptional service with prestigious award from Royal Society of Chemistry

Posted Wednesday 12 June 2024

Dr Baljit Thatti has been honoured by the Royal Society of Chemistry for her outstanding volunteering contributions to the organisation and chemistry sector.

An academic expert from Kingston University has been honoured with a prestigious award for exceptional service from the Royal Society of Chemistry, in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the organisation as a volunteer in the field of chemistry.

Dr Baljit Thatti, the University's Head of Department for Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, was selected for the annual award, which recognises volunteers who have made a personal impact by contributing to the Society through a variety of voluntary roles.

Dr Thatti became an active member of the Society in 2018 and has gradually taken on more governance roles and became an RSC fellow in 2021.

She chairs the local committee covering South East England, which hosts events and provides members with opportunities to share their views on local activities, and sits on the wider admissions committee that evaluates applications for Society membership. She also sits on its Inclusion and Diversity Prize panel, which recognises teams and individuals whose innovative approaches have improved accessibility, inclusivity and diversity across the chemical science community.Dr Thatti has been a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry since 2018 and has gradually taken a more active role over the last few years.

From this month, Dr Thatti will also sit on the Society's Inclusion and Diversity Committee, which oversees practices across the chemical sector internationally and looks at how they can be more inclusive and diverse.

Dr Thatti carries out these roles outside her day-to-day job at Kingston University, where she has worked for 13 years. She places inclusion and equality at the heart of curriculum development, which in turn prompted her to become an active member of the Society to help drive improvement.

"My voluntary work with the Society has given me more confidence to credibly speak about the subject area and really make a tangible difference to the chemical sector I am so passionate about," she said. "This is especially important when it comes to making sure we're training the next generation of chemists as well as we can, ensuring they have the skills to deal with the challenges of the future."

Dr Thatti is currently working on a three-year Society-funded project with the University of Brighton and Imperial College London to help create lasting change by improving the representation, progression and retention of chemical scientists from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds.

She is the second recipient of the Society's exceptional service award to have come from Kingston University, following in the footsteps of Professor of Analytical Science James Barker, who received the accolade in 2020. Professor Barker was recognised for his outstanding service supporting and developing professional development activities for the chemical sector community and taking an active role in the organisation's governance committees.