Fueling Early Success

For early-career professors, endowed positions are few and far between. So, when Steven Ray received an offer to join UB as the next Dr. Marjorie E. Winkler Assistant Professor of Chemistry, he jumped at the opportunity. The professorship has opened countless doors for Ray at a critical stage in his career, providing him with annual funding to travel to scientific conferences around the globe—to destinations that range from Chicago to Spain—for networking with peers and learning about the latest findings in the field of mass spectrometry.

“As an assistant professor, it’s important to create a name in the field for yourself and to get exposure for your research,” says Ray, who joined the College of Arts and Sciences in 2015. “It’s one thing to write a paper. It’s another to present at an international conference and discover cutting-edge science that isn’t in the literature. It’s important that junior faculty have these types of opportunities because they often don’t have many resources. UB is at the forefront of what many departments are going to offer.”

Created through the generosity of its namesake, Marjorie E. Winkler, PhD ’80, BS ’75, the endowed professorship is awarded to exceptional faculty in the Department of Chemistry. When a recipient achieves tenure, the position rotates to a new faculty member. Winkler, a former vice president at biotechnology company Genentech, Inc., views this endowed faculty position as one of many tools to help the department recruit and retain talented faculty and students.

“There’s a cycle to making a department better. If the chemistry department offers more opportunities, the department earns a higher status and the students have an easier time landing jobs,” says Winkler, who credits UB for helping launch her career. 

During Ray’s tenure as Winkler Assistant Professor of Chemistry, 10 of his students have also benefitted; it has enabled them to present their research at conferences and soak up knowledge that will drive the next generation of scientists. Several students have also won awards for their presentations at the conferences. 

Winkler has been a passionate and steadfast supporter of the Department of Chemistry. Her first gift to UB was in 1998; since then, her giving has expanded to include fellowships and funds for chemistry students and early- and late-career faculty—what she describes as the whole package. In addition to endowing the assistant professorship position, she recently pledged a gift to establish the Dr. Marjorie E. Winkler Distinguished Professorship in the Department of Chemistry for tenured faculty.