Jennifer S. Shumaker-Parry

Dr. Jennifer S. Shumaker-Parry is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Utah. She joined the Chemistry Department as an Assistant Professor in January 2005 and was promoted to Professor in 2016. She also serves as the Director of the Biotechnology Track of the Professional Science Master Program at the University of Utah. The research efforts of her group focus on the investigation, development and application of plasmonic nanomaterials and platforms in spectroscopy, chemical and biological sensing, and catalysis. Dr. Shumaker-Parry grew up on a small dairy and grain farm in South Dakota. She began doing research in electrochemistry as an undergraduate student. She worked with Prof. Royce Engstrom at the University of South Dakota and spent a summer as a visiting student with Prof. Royce Murray at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. She worked in the Analytical Development Laboratory for Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation (formerly Sandoz) in Lincoln, Nebraska for a year before pursuing graduate studies at Colorado State University where she worked on phase behavior of perfluorinated lipids using atomic force microscopy with Prof. David Grainger and Prof. Bruce Parkinson. After transferring to the University of Washington, she worked under the guidance of Prof. Charles Campbell in the Chemistry Department. Her doctoral dissertation focused on measuring protein interactions with vesicles and DNA using SPR spectroscopy and microscopy methods, including building one of the early SPR microscopes. As a National Science Foundation Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate Distinguished Post Doctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Shumaker-Parry worked in Prof. Wolfgang Knoll’s group at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany where she focused on the development of plasmonic materials for spectroscopy applications. She received an NSF CAREER Award in 2009, the ACS PROGRESS/Dreyfus Lectureship and the ADVANCE Young Scientist Lectureship (University of Arizona) in 2008. She was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2022. She was awarded the R.W. Parry Teaching Award in 2016, the University of Utah Distinguished Teaching Award in 2025, and the Utah Award for Outstanding Educator at a Research Institution by Utah sections of the American Chemical Society in 2025.