Amy Dounay ’96 returned to Colorado College as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in 2012. She obtained her Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the University of Minnesota, where she researched the synthesis of marine natural products. She then completed a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellowship in organic chemistry at the University of California, Irvine. Her postdoctoral research focused on applications of the intramolecular asymmetric Heck reaction toward the synthesis of alkaloid natural products. From 2004-2012, she worked at Pfizer in the Neurosciences Medicinal Chemistry division, where she was a laboratory head and chemistry team leader on numerous drug discovery projects for psychiatry and neurodegeneration. Her current research at Colorado College is focused on the discovery of new medicines to treat African sleeping sickness. She is also developing new pedagogical approaches for organic chemistry education, including involving students in introductory courses in research toward new antibiotics. Her research program at Colorado College has been funded by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement Cottrell College Science Award, the Boettcher Foundation Webb-Waring Biomedical Research Award, and a National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation grant.
