Professor earns top national award
Costanzo is being recognized for his work with the Macromolecular Alliance for Community Resources & Outreach, a joint service committee of two American Chemical Society divisions.
Dr. Phil Costanzo, a Cal Poly chemistry professor, is one of three professors to be awarded the national James Flack Norris Award for outstanding teaching in chemistry by the American Chemical Society.
Costanzo is being recognized for his work with the Macromolecular Alliance for Community Resources & Outreach (MACRO), a joint service committee of two American Chemical Society divisions: Polymer Chemistry (POLY) and Polymeric Materials: Science & Engineering (PMSE).
The award celebrates MACRO’s outstanding achievements in chemistry education and its extensive, sustained impact on the polymer education community. Founded in 2019 by chemistry professors Elizabeth Sterner (Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania), Dominik Konkolewicz (Miami University in Ohio) and Costanzo, MACRO has emerged as a national leader in developing freely accessible educational, outreach, and professional development resources for polymer chemists at all career stages. Each of the three professors who founded MACRO is among this year’s James Flack Norris Award honorees.
Costanzo’s work has included broad educational outreach through guidance for K-12 instructors and higher education teachers providing developmental instruction.
“Many people want to do outreach but don’t know where to start,” Costanzo said. “The (MACRO) repository breaks it all down step by step: how to plan it, what supplies you need, how to fundraise. We do things like this all the time, and now we have this incredible opportunity to share that with other people.”
The Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society (NESACS) will present the award on Nov. 13, 2025, to the three honorees at Simmons University in Boston, Massachusetts.