Assistant Professor Vida Jamali is the inaugural recipient of the new Dr. James Robert and Margaret Spencer Early Career Fellowship in Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE@GT).
“Her outstanding research accomplishments and contributions to the School and Georgia Tech led to this selection,” said Professor Christopher W. Jones, the John F. Brock III School Chair in ChBE@GT.
The $20,000 in discretionary funding from this one-year fellowship will support Jamali’s research activities focused on developing new tools for in situ liquid-phase transmission electron microscopy, stochastic thermodynamics, and nanoscience-based platforms.
The Spencers established the endowment from which the term fellowship funding comes in 2017. This endowment will eventually lead to the establishment of a professorship in ChBE@GT.
“Bob Spencer is a successful alumnus who has remained connected to our chemical engineering program,” according to Jones. “His family’s gift will allow ChBE@GT to support an early career professor at a critical stage of their development—the crucial years just before their promotion and tenure review. We are grateful for their support and generosity.”
Jamali, who holds a PhD from Rice University, joined the faculty of ChBE@GT in 2022 after holding postdoctoral researcher positions at the University of California, Berkeley, and Kavli Energy Nanoscience Institute.
Her honors and recognitions include the NSF CAREER Award (2024), ACS PRF Doctoral New Investigator Award (2023), and Scialog Fellowship for Automating Chemical Labs (2024). In 2025, she was a Beckman Young Investigator Award finalist.
James Robert (Bob) Spencer (center) with College of Engineering Dean Raheem Beyah and co-host Tom Fanning (IM 1979, M.S. IM 1980, Hon. Ph.D. 2013), retired chairman, president, and CEO, Southern Company at the College of Engineering's 2024 Alumni Awards ceremony. Spencer was inducted into the Engineering Hall of Fame.
Spencer's Background
James Robert (Bob) Spencer (ChE 1959) came to Georgia Tech at the urging of a math teacher from Milton, Florida, and started off in industrial management, before changing his major to chemical engineering.
After graduating from Georgia Tech, Spencer worked for two years in the polymer research and development division of the Monsanto Corporation. He then earned his medical degree from the University of Florida, graduating first in his class.
Over the next five years, he served in the United States Public Health Service at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. He also completed his medical residency in the Osler Medical Service at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and the Pathology Department of the University of Alabama in Birmingham.
He practiced for the next 42 years as the managing partner of an eight-person group, Sarasota Pathology (later Sarapath Diagnostics), and chief of pathology for Sarasota Memorial Health Care System. Sarasota Memorial honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award shortly before his retirement.
In 2024, he was inducted into the College of Engineering's Hall of Fame.
Spencer said Georgia Tech provides an excellent foundation for preparing students to follow wherever life might lead. And he strongly believes his engineering education gave him a strong foundation for laboratory medicine.
He also supports other universities and many community activities, especially those combating climate change.