Emanuel Waddell joined the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) Department of Chemistry in the Fall of 2004, where he is a member of the Biotechnology and Materials Science Faculty. He is a graduate of Morehouse College (I.B.S., Chemistry, Physics) and Louisiana State University (PhD, Analytical Chemistry). His research at LSU was in the area of near infrared time-resolved fluorescence. Following the receipt of his doctorate, Waddell completed a National Research Council PostDoctoral Fellowship at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD where he became interested in the laser ablation of polymer substrates and its application in microfluidic (lab-on-a-chip) devices. Emanuel was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor at UAH in 2010. From 2010 to 2019, Waddell served as the campus coordinator for the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation. In 2015, Waddell was appointed as Associate Dean for the College of Science at UAH. From 2017 to 2019, Emanuel served as the national president for the National Society for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE). Emanuel joined the National Science Foundation in July 2019 where he is a Program Officer with the HBCU-UP, CREST and HSI programs.