Mary Kinsel is the winner of Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s 2024 Teaching Excellence Award for non-tenure track faculty.
An associate professor of practice in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Sciences within the College of Agricultural, Life, and Physical Sciences, Kinsel joined SIU in 2005 as director of the Mass Spectrometry Facility. She has almost three decades of industrial and academic experience in using mass spectrometry techniques to study and characterize biological samples.
The award honors faculty who demonstrate outstanding teaching in their discipline.
Kinselearned her doctorate in analytical chemistry at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.
Get to know MARY KINSEL
Name: Mary Kinsel
Years at SIU: 19
What do you enjoy most about your work at SIU? I enjoy getting to know the students that I am fortunate to have in multiple lecture and laboratory courses, undergraduate and graduate research, and/or through the professional chemistry fraternity Alpha Chi Sigma that I advise. I am proud to say that I keep in touch with many, many former students going all the way back to 2005-2006, my first year at SIU.
I’m happiest when I am … when I am hanging out with my family. This is getting more challenging as my son and daughter are grown, so some planning is required to get everyone together. The most recent time that we were all able to hang out was the Total Solar Eclipse weekend in early April.
At the top of my “bucket list” is to … to drive U.S. Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica, California. We hope to invite some friends from Germany to join us on a 2 to 2 1/2-week trek in 2026 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Mother Road. I have always loved driving cross country with my family. We choose to eat at local restaurants based on whether their parking lot is full and wander around visiting local tourist sites.
My favorite activity away from work is … reading books dealing with women’s contributions to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics as well as general texts on the history and development of chemistry and forensic science. My kids just gave me two new books for Mother’s Day.
What are three things you cannot live without? My husband Gary, my son Ian, and my daughter Aubrey.
