By Cecilia Smith, Administrative Assistant, ACS Green Chemistry Institute, and David A. Laviska, Portfolio Manager for Green Chemistry and Sustainability in Education, ACS Green Chemistry Institute
The 2025 ACS GCI Summer School brought together 71 passionate grad students and postdocs from across the Americas for a week of learning, networking, and inspiration in Vermont. With expert-led sessions on green chemistry, poster presentations, group projects, and social outings, the program emphasized collaboration and sustainability. Students left energized, equipped with new knowledge and friendships, and we are excited to report on the program’s impact on student development and the successful achievement of learning goals.
For more than two decades, the American Chemical Society has generously facilitated a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for graduate students and postdoctoral chemists and chemical engineers: the annual Green and Sustainable Chemistry Summer School (GSCSS). In July 2025, 71 exceptional students completed the seven-day program hosted by the ACS Green Chemistry Institute (GCI) on the campus of the University of Vermont in Burlington. Open to students studying at institutions located in North, South, and Central America and the Caribbean, more than 1350 students have participated since the first summer school in 2003, representing more than 230 universities in 13 countries. This year, participants joined us from 21 states across the U.S. and 9 countries. While the GSCSS has evolved over the years – different locations, instructors, subject matter content, teaching format, etc. – the core program goals have remained the same: a commitment to fostering knowledge, collaboration, and leadership in green chemistry and engineering with a strong emphasis on building connections and community.
“This experience went far beyond an academic program— it marked a turning point in my personal and professional journey,” said Alannah Calazans, Ph.D. candidate at the Military Institute of Engineering in Brazil, who attended the 2025 program. “I return home with new knowledge, strong friendships, and a renewed determination to continue driving sustainability through chemistry.”
Calazans’ experience reflects the three overarching goals guiding the program’s structure and content:
- Increase student understanding of the central tenets of green chemistry
- Provide examples of how green chemistry and sustainability concepts can be integrated into the work of chemists, engineers, and innovators
- Instill confidence to start reimagining every aspect of research, development, teaching, and collaborations to leverage an inclusive, systems-level mindset while tackling global sustainability challenges.
To achieve this, the 2025 program featured 24 instructional modules, three two-hour student poster sessions, a panel discussion featuring visiting experts, and continuous networking opportunities. Instructional sessions taught by 16 distinguished faculty from academia, non-profit organizations, and industry covered topics such as toxicology, greener synthesis, life cycle analysis, circularity, sustainable polymers, and many others.
While the central focus of the program is instructional, the summer school also aims to create a resilient network of scientists with shared values and interests. Each year, students have opportunities to build connections during social events and location-based excursions. This year’s opportunities included a welcome barbeque, poster sessions, and a 90-minute tour around Lake Champlain – an excursion that epitomizes the Vermont experience and has quickly become a favorite Summer School tradition.
“The diverse group of students and faculty reminded me that I belong in this space and helped me forge lifelong friendships with other like-minded scientists striving for a green future,” said Sofia Feliciano, Ph.D. student at Texas A&M University.
Evolution & Future of the GSCSS
Although it is important that we honor tradition and the history of the Summer School, we are making changes each year to improve and update the programmatic agenda. For 2025, we expanded the program to six days of instructional sessions (previously five) and grew the numbers of both student participants and faculty compared to programs from the last several years. We expanded our faculty cohort to include more industry professionals (3) and experts from institutions outside the U.S. (4), including Summer School alumnus Youssef Habibi from Morocco and Flavia Zacconi from Chile. This growth shows the breadth of the program’s impact, yet the individual impressions on graduate students and postdoctoral scholars remain deeply meaningful and influential as they prepare for careers related to green and sustainable chemistry and engineering.
As coordinators of the 2025 program, we want to thank the faculty and GCI staff – 20 colleagues representing a broad spectrum of disciplines – who gave so generously of their time and expertise. It was exciting seeing them teach, encourage, and engage with the students while exhorting them to think at a higher level about the roles chemistry and engineering play in tackling global sustainability challenges. The inspiring leadership from our volunteer faculty is at the heart of the student experience, and we thank them for the critical role they played in making the program such a huge success.
Looking forward, we have several exciting changes planned for future summer school programs – small and large modifications we hope will make the experiences more inclusive, impactful, and far-reaching. As more students apply each year, the admission process has become increasingly selective, yet we want to provide as many opportunities as possible. Stay tuned for more information about this and other changes for 2026 to be announced in the coming months. Given the scale of the sustainability challenges we are facing as a global community, the urgency for training our future scientists is greater than ever. We are working to ensure that the ACS GCI Summer School continues to earn its reputation as the most sought-after program of its kind.
Applications for the 2026 Summer School are open now through December 15, 2025. Apply now or share this with a graduate student! acs.org/gscss