Texas A&M Hosts Young Scientists from Around the U.S. Selected to Attend 2025 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings 

Along with this year’s co-sponsors Nestlé Purina Petcare and Nutramax Laboratories Veterinary Sciences, Texas A&M is partnering with Lindau to support a transformational opportunity for young scientists.  
 

A group of 27 of the most promising young chemistry undergraduates, graduate students and post-docs in the U.S. – including six Aggies – attended the Lindau Scholars’ Spring Meeting at Texas A&M on April 24-25. The event serves as a preparatory workshop for young scientists selected to attend the prestigious Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings in Lindau, Germany, from June 30 - July 4, 2025.  

The spring meeting at Texas A&M is a joint initiative of the Office of the Provost, the Graduate and Professional School, the Division of Research, the Office for Faculty Affairs and the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study. It is organized by JonSavannah Carter, program coordinator in the Graduate and Professional School.  

The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings connect Nobel prize winners with young scientists in their field, with the goal of educating and inspiring those young scholars to become the next generation of ground-breaking scientific researchers. The field of study for this year’s Lindau meetings is chemistry.  

For Andre Sanchez, a chemistry post-doc at Harvard, the two-day experience in College Station and the upcoming Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings present prime opportunities to learn from and be inspired to ask courageous research questions by Nobel laureates and outstanding young scholars.  

“Sometimes in science it can be more comforting to work within boundaries rather than take big risks that could fail, though those big risks often lead to breakthroughs” said Sanchez, whose research on the design and synthesis of new catalysts to control the shape of organic molecules has applications in the discovery and development of new medicines. “What's really exciting about being part of this group is that we will be spending a lot of time with people who took risks that might seem crazy to others at the time but, as a result, discovered something new to move science forward." 

 

Texas A&M – Lindau Foundation Partnership 

Texas A&M is one of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Foundation's key U.S. academic collaborators. As part of the Texas A&M - Lindau Foundation agreement, the university helps facilitate the selection of the Lindau scholars and their travel to Germany, along with co-sponsors Nestlé Purina Petcare and Nutramax Laboratories Veterinary Sciences. In addition, the university coordinates a preparatory workshop for the group in College Station and will host a Partner Breakfast panel discussion at the Lindau Meetings on the role of chemistry in creating a circular economy.  

Executive Vice President and Provost Alan Sams said the goal of the preparatory meeting is to help the young scientists make the most of their Lindau experience, showcase opportunities for world-class research at Texas A&M, and grow our university’s global reputation.  

"Attending the Lindau meetings can be life changing,” Sams said. “As a world leader in innovative research, we are proud to support this transformative opportunity for our country’s most promising up-and-coming scientists to engage with Nobel laureates. We hope many of them – at the graduate, post-graduate or faculty level – will choose to push the boundaries of discovery to meet global challenges here at Texas A&M." 

Texas A&M chemistry doctoral student and Lindau scholar Samya Samanta, whose research in carbon-nitrogen coupling could lead to improved sustainability and waste management in widely used synthetic processes, said he was both grateful to be selected to attend the Lindau meetings and excited for Texas A&M to play such an important role in the process.  

“It’s incredibly rewarding to be a part of such a select group of scholars from around the U.S. Being selected gives me a confidence boost to carry on impactful research with even greater zeal,” Samanta said. “I am immensely thankful to Texas A&M for this opportunity and honored to have my university so prominently involved. Bringing such bright scholars to Texas A&M will promote the rich research culture we have here, and I think all of us who attend Lindau will remember it with gratitude and forever look for ways to give back to the institution that made it possible.”     

 

Scholars’ Impressions of Texas A&M 

Young chemists from institutions across the U.S. recognized Texas A&M’s commitment to research innovation and appreciated the collaborative atmosphere administrators, faculty and students fostered. 

“Texas A&M is massive,” said Kristen Gardner-Fasanya, a post-doc at Cal Tech. “The X-Ray Diffraction Facility, the NSF Center for the Mechanical Control of Chemistry, the Drug Discovery Center and the Cyclotron Institute: there are so many resources to get innovative chemistry done.” 

Gardner-Fasanya, who researches ways to increase efficiency in metals common but rarely used because of the waste generated in processing, was also excited about the collaborative spirit of Texas A&M and Lindau meetings.  

“Science is extremely collaborative, particularly in chemistry where we’re discovering chemical transformations used to build molecules, which is, to use a metaphor, basically like building and expanding tools in a toolbox for scientists in other disciplines to use,” Gardner-Fasanya said. “Coming to Texas A&M and attending Lindau is such a great opportunity to network and share ideas with a diverse group of scientists from around the world, which is essential to fostering new research questions to solve problems.”   

Second-year Harvard doctoral student Meghan Sullivan said she was “very impressed by the excitement for scholarly research that was exuded from the students, faculty, staff, deans, and the provost. Everyone really seemed enthusiastic about bringing the next generation of impact-making scientists to Texas A&M, which – to a scientist looking for a community where big ideas and ambitious goals can thrive – is very appealing.” 

For Sullivan, whose molecular research can potentially improve understanding about how metalloenzymes work in the human body, improve catalytic oxidations in industrial processes and increase efficiencies in metal-air battery technologies, the Lindau scholars’ meeting was also her first visit to Texas. “The opportunity to experience some Texan culture over dinner with a performance by the Aggie Wranglers was also a highlight.” After returning to her lab the week after her visit, Sullivan said “I found myself greeting my lab-mates with ‘Howdy!’, so the Texas A&M culture really rubbed off on me.” 

 

Potential to Grow Relationships with Future Nobel Laureates 

Dr. Jörg Steiner, Regents Professor and University Distinguished Professor of Veterinary Medicine and faculty liaison for the Office of the Vice President for Research, has spearheaded the initiative.  

“Lindau is the premier event of its kind, where the world’s most ground-breaking scientists engage with the next generation of researchers,” Steiner said. “It’s fitting and beneficial for Texas A&M to be such an integral partner with the Lindau Nobel Laureate Foundation. Our university is a place where innovation is welcomed, encouraged and supported. Once these scholars spend two days here and five days in Lindau, they will be inspired to conduct the kind of research that wins Nobel Prizes, and they’ll know they can do that research at Texas A&M.”  
 

2025 Lindau Scholars  

Michelle Brann, Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University 

Pablo Buitrago, Undergraduate Student, Columbia University 

Caitlin Cain, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Michigan 

Lexin Chen, Doctoral Student, University of Florida 

Rafael Ferreira de Menezes, Doctoral Student, University of Colorado - Boulder  

Kristen Gardner-Fasanya, Postdoctoral Fellow, California Institute of Technology 

Shruti Hariyani, Postdoctoral Researcher, Texas A&M University 

Azimul Haque Mohammed, Postdoctoral Researcher, National Renewable Energy Laboratory 

Abigail Jiang, Doctoral Student, Harvard University 

Zhaowei Jiang, Doctoral Student, Brown University 

Maria Kelly, Doctoral Student, University of Colorado - Boulder 

Daniel Kermany, MD/PhD Student, Texas A&M University 

Irina Kopyeva, Postdoctoral Researcher, Cornell University 

Sayan Kundu, Doctoral Student, University of Florida 

Joshua Lucker, Doctoral Student, University of Maryland - College Park 

Francisco Martins, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Houston 

Julia Murphy, Postdoctoral Fellow, National Institute of Standards and Technology  

Simon Nirenberg, Undergraduate Student, Brown University 

Ebubechi Nwaubani, Undergraduate Student, Harvard University  

Ryan O'Shea, Undergraduate Student, Texas A&M University 

Andre Sanchez, Postdoctoral Researcher, Harvard University 

Samya Samanta, Doctoral Student, Texas A&M University 

Meghan Sullivan, Doctoral Student, Harvard University 

Sagarika Taneja, Doctoral Student, The Ohio State University 

Joseph Tsenum, Doctoral Student, University of Florida 

Emily Volk, Doctoral Student, Colorado School of Mines 

Darian Yang, Doctoral Student, University of Pittsburgh 

David Zeitz, Doctoral Student, University of California – Santa Cruz (sponsored by UCSC) 

_{Media Contact: Rob Dixon, rdixon@tamu.edu, 979-458-8584}