Lloyd Armstrong Jr. Chair

We are not accepting applications for the Lloyd Armstrong Jr. Chair for the 2025-2026 academic year.

Deadline: No specific deadline for recruitment of external candidates. March 25 for internal retention candidates (In the event that a deadline falls upon a weekend or a university holiday, that deadline will move to the first workday following the posted date.)

Award Amount: $50,000/year for 5 years

Directions: Contact Leana Golubchik at leana@usc.edu

The Lloyd Armstrong Jr. Chair in Science and the Lloyd Armstrong Jr. Chair in Engineering will each be awarded for a period of five years to attract or retain outstanding senior faculty members in engineering, natural science, or math and who will also make significant contributions to the WiSE Program goals.

Goal: To contribute to equal opportunity in science and engineering by recruiting or retaining outstanding senior faculty who will also make significant contributions to the Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) Program goals.

Eligibility: The Lloyd Armstrong Jr. Chair in Science and the Lloyd Armstrong Jr. Chair in Engineering will be awarded for a period of five years to outstanding senior faculty in engineering, natural science, or math who will also contribute significantly to WiSE affairs. Each Chair will be given as part of recruitment or retention effort for an outstanding external or internal candidate. Each holder of the Chair will be expected to contribute to equal opportunity, for example, to the mentoring of more junior faculty. With the help of the WiSE funds, it is hoped that the WiSE activities will enhance research programs of the Chair holders.

As with all WiSE support, the WiSE contribution will be used to embellish and augment offers beyond the regular set-up funds offered by the School. Specifically, $50,000/year for 5 years will be allocated to Chair holders’ research funds. The use of the remainder of the endowment income will be negotiated between the WiSE Director and the Dean. The endowment funds will not be used to pay regular academic-year salary. They can be used in ways that benefit the Chair holders, such as summer salary, housing assistance, etc.

USC WiSE operates all of its programs and activities consistent with the University’s Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other protected characteristic.

Selection Process and Criteria: Two criteria will be used: academic excellence and WiSE contributions.

  • Academic excellence. The candidate will satisfy all the criteria of excellence established by the University for endowed Chairs, and will be selected using the same procedures currently in place for selection of senior Chairs.
  • WiSE contributions. The Chair holder is expected to make substantial contributions to the WiSE Program at USC in areas such as: mentoring of faculty, graduate and undergraduate students; establishing new WiSE activities, and participating in the current WiSE program.

Nominations should include the following three documents:

  1. Statement of scientific contributions – provide objective evidence of national and international stature
  2. Statement of WiSE-related contributions – briefly summarize the nominee’s special contributions to WiSE-related goals (at USC or outside of USC)
  3. Individual’s CV

The Deans of the Viterbi School of Engineering and the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences will send nominations to the Director of the WiSE Program. The Deans will be asked to propose suitable external or internal candidates. In the case of recruitment, these external candidates should have the strong support of faculty in the appropriate areas/departments. When a potential external candidate is first identified, the Dean should contact the Director of the WiSE Program to arrange for senior WiSE faculty to be involved in the process, in order to determine whether the candidate meets the WiSE contributions criteria. The Lloyd Armstrong, Jr. Chair will not be offered without the early involvement of the WiSE leadership in the interview/recruitment process. A committee of senior faculty from the Viterbi School of Engineering, the Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, and the WiSE Advisory Board will make the recommendations, which will be forwarded to the Provost for approval. Upon approval, selected nominees (and corresponding Department Chairs and Deans) will be notified.

Current and Past Award Recipients

  • Jill McNitt-Gray, USC Dornsife, Department of Biological Sciences, Lloyd Armstrong Jr. Chair in Science (2025-2030)
  • Malancha Gupta, USC Viterbi, Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Lloyd Armstrong Jr. Chair in Engineering (2025-2030)
  • Hanna Reisler, USC Dornsife, Department of Chemistry (2002-2024)