UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Joseph Cotruvo Jr., professor of chemistry at Penn State, has been named as a 2025 finalist for the Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists in the chemical sciences category. The awards, established by the Blavatnik Family Foundation and independently administered by The New York Academy of Sciences, recognize exceptional scientists in the early years of their professional careers. The awards are open to scientists under the age of 42 who are working in the fields of chemical sciences, physical sciences and engineering, and life sciences. Honorees are selected based on the quality, novelty and impact of their research and their potential for further contributions to science.
Cotruvo is being recognized for the second time, having also been a finalist in 2024, for “discovering and engineering proteins that selectively extract rare earth elements, enabling sustainable recycling and purification of metals critical to technology supply chains.”
“Being named a finalist for the Blavatnik Awards for a second year in a row is an incredible accomplishment,” said Kenneth L. Knappenberger, Jr., professor and head of chemistry at Penn State. “It’s a testament to Joey’s creativity as a scientist and the important and impactful nature of his research. We are lucky to have Joey in the Department of Chemistry here at Penn State and it’s fantastic to see his research recognized with this honor. Congratulations, Joey!”
The awards will be presented by Subra Suresh, former director of the U.S. National Science Foundation and current president of the Global Learning Council in Switzerland, in a ceremony on Oct 7 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
Each of three laureates will receive an unrestricted award of $250,000, the world’s largest unrestricted science prize ever-created for early-career scientists. The remaining 15 finalists will each receive $15,000. An independent jury of expert scientists selected this year’s finalists from a national pool of 310 nominees representing 161 academic and research institutions across 42 states.
“I’m grateful to my students, postdocs and collaborators, without whom this recognition would not have been possible,” Cotruvo said. “Developing new and more efficient ways of harvesting critical minerals is difficult chemistry, but it grows more and more important by the day. I am honored to be among this cohort of Blavatnik National Honorees who are working to address some of the biggest scientific challenges of our time.”
The Cotruvo lab uses biochemistry and chemical biology to understand metal selectivity in biological systems. The group studies how bacteria selectively acquire and utilize lanthanides — a group of 14 metallic chemical elements — and applies what they learn to design biotechnologies for rare earth detection, recovery and separations. The research team also develops and applies new chemical tools to study roles of transition metals, particularly iron and manganese, in infectious disease.
Cotruvo was recently named the recipient of the 2026 Mildred Cohn Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He was honored with a Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement from Penn State and the Society of Biological Inorganic Chemistry Early Career Award in 2025. He has previously been honored with the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry by the American Chemical Society's Division of Biological Chemistry in 2024, the Ed Stiefel Young Investigator Award in 2022, a Sloan Research Fellowship in 2021, a Department of Energy Early Career Award in 2020, a U.S. National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award in 2020, a Charles E. Kaufman Foundation New Investigator Award in 2018, a Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2013, and a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship in 2008.
Prior to joining the Penn State faculty in 2016, Cotruvo was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. He earned a doctoral degree in chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2012 and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Princeton University in 2006.
About the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists
The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, established by the Blavatnik Family Foundation in 2007 and independently administered by The New York Academy of Sciences, began by identifying outstanding post-doctoral scientists in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. In 2014, the Blavatnik National Awards were created to recognize faculty-rank scientists throughout the United States. In 2017, the Awards were further expanded to honor faculty-rank scientists in the UK and Israel.
For updates about the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, please visit www.blavatnikawards.org.
About the Blavatnik Family Foundation
The Blavatnik Family Foundation provides many of the world’s best researchers, scientists and future leaders with the support and funding needed to solve humankind’s greatest challenges. Led by Len Blavatnik, founder of Access Industries, the Foundation advances and promotes innovation, discovery and creativity to benefit the whole of society. Over the past decade, the Foundation has contributed over US$1.3 billion to more than 250 organizations. See more at www.blavatnikfoundation.org.
About The New York Academy of Sciences
The New York Academy of Sciences is an independent, not-for-profit organization that since 1817 has been committed to advancing science for the benefit of society. With more than 16,000 members in 100 countries, the Academy advances scientific and technical knowledge, addresses global challenges with science-based solutions, and sponsors a wide variety of educational initiatives at all levels for STEM and STEM-related fields. The Academy hosts programs and publishes content in the life and physical sciences, the social sciences, nutrition, artificial intelligence, computer science, and sustainability. The Academy also provides professional and educational resources for researchers across all phases of their careers. The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists is part of a series of prominent awards and scholarship programs that the Academy and its partners present each year to accomplished early-career and established scientists worldwide. These initiatives, along with education and professional development programs for students and young scientists, reflect the Academy’s broader commitment to strengthening and diversifying the pipeline for skilled and talented scientists globally. Please visit us online at www.nyas.org.