Certain types of people are drawn towards a certain place like oppositely charged ions. This is definitely the case for Chemistry Professor and Associate Dean of the Walter Maxwell Gibson College of Natural Sciences Nathan Warner who after years of collecting academic accolades, couldn’t help but return to the town that raised him; Cedar City, Utah.
As a young boy in southern Utah, Werner was always interested in the world of chemistry, often performing ill-advised experiments with whatever household chemicals he could get his hands on.
“(People) tell you not to mix the things I was mixing, but I was always very curious to understand nature and I wanted to discover a potion that would have the desired effects that I would want,” he said. “And for me, maybe that was killing the ants in the yard.”
Werner didn’t simply have a vendetta against the local insects — he made these concoctions as a way to understand the world around him.
“Science kind of came natural to me because science is the best way humans have developed to methodically study nature and understand it,” he said.
At the same time, he grew up attending Southern Utah University basketball games. He also liked to watch his grandfather, a business professor for the college, prepare for his lectures.
He found a home in T-Bird Nation from an early age, so it really was no surprise he chose to pursue his undergraduate education at SUU.
“I just remember thinking that (SUU) was kind of the only choice,” he said. “If you were going to go to college, you’d go to SUU. Why wouldn’t you?”
Werner’s grandfather was an alumni for the college, and so was his father, making Werner a third generation T-Bird. SUU was more than just a familial obligation, though. He truly found himself through his undergraduate years.
From participating in student leadership — he was the Southern Utah University Student Association science senator for a year — to engaging in his classes, SUU seemed to be the perfect environment for Werner to thrive.
“SUU has a very unique feel for an undergraduate institution,” Werner stated. “It’s a place where everyone comes together, and the students and the faculty, and even the staff, participate in this grand experiment of higher education where everyone works together to better themselves.”
Though the chemistry program was fairly small at the time, Werner’s years at SUU turned him from a “mediocre” high school student to a competitive applicant for graduate schools. In 2005 he finished his schooling at SUU and was accepted into his top graduate program, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
UIUC is consistently ranked among the top chemistry programs in the nation. There he earned his Ph.D., focusing his studies on organic chemistry. He greatly expanded his understanding of the field of professional chemistry at UIUC. However, there was something missing from the experience.
“I got a great education there, but the feeling was very different. There wasn’t as much warmth,” he said. “There’s 55,000 students at the University of Illinois and 15,000 of them were graduate students. I was just one of many, and I was marching along getting my degree.”
After spending his whole life in southern Utah, Werner missed that sense of community, but the move introduced him to a whole new world for advanced chemists.
“Coming from a small town, I didn’t know a lot of scientists,” he mentioned. “I knew healthcare professionals that got degrees in science. I knew my chemistry faculty members at SUU. Those were the scientists I knew.”
When he began graduate school, he realized his initial expectations of the job market for chemists were wrong. There were plenty of career opportunities designated for chemists. Many organic chemists like Werner end up working in the pharmaceutical field, which was the path he was headed towards during graduate school.
In 2009, Werner was awarded an Eli Lilly Synthetic Organic Chemistry Fellowship. Eli Lilly is an American pharmaceutical company that develops and manufactures medicines, headquartered in Indianapolis, IN.
During his fellowship, Werner heavily considered working for the organization, or another pharmaceutical company. In fact, after graduating with his Ph.D. in 2011, he began his postdoctoral research, studying the design and synthesis of potent antibiotics.
As his postdoc was wrapping up, Werner got a call from SUU saying that there was a position open for an organic chemist on their staff. He was actively applying for jobs in medicinal research, but this was a dream that he had long forgotten.
Back when Werner was a student at SUU, he had a course with chemistry professor Ty Redd. He found that watching someone share what they were passionate about to a room of students who were also passionate about that subject was inspiring.
“Dr. Ty Redd, he was probably mid-career when I went up to him and I said to him ‘When are you going to retire? I want your job,’” he said.
For most of SUU’s history, the science department only had one organic chemist on staff. While Werner was getting his Ph.D., SUU had grown enough to hire a second organic chemist, Professor Mackay Steffensen.
“In graduate school I figured ‘well, they’re never going to need another [organic chemistry professor],’” he said. “Universities tend to not grow that fast, and so when I got the call that they needed someone else, that there was an opening for an organic chemist here. It was too good to be true.”
In 2012, Werner began teaching general and organic chemistry at his alma mater, which he called a “dream come true.” Because SUU was the foundation for all of his success in academics, it was a priority throughout his career to pay that forward.
“I take the success of my students very seriously,” he said. “I want them to have the same experience that I had, where their dreams come true.”
Werner is dedicated to giving students the best education possible and preparing them to engage with the best in the field. One way he tries to achieve this is through undergraduate research.
“I’ve mentored over 50 undergraduate students, many of whom are now in medical school and dental school and chemistry graduate school, and one’s actually a faculty member back here at SUU,” he stated.
Through the efforts of Werner and other science department faculty members, students have been able to excel post-SUU. In fact, one of Werner’s students was actually accepted into his graduate program at UIUC.
Werner doesn’t believe that this success is despite the school’s small size, but rather because of it.
“We have high expectations of our students, but I think in general we’re also very helpful,” he said. “Because we’re a smaller program, we tend to know all of the chemistry majors, and you kind of get that very personalized education.”
He related his method of teaching to being a Mount Everest climbing guide.
“Sometimes I talk about climbing Mount Everest in my classes, and I kind of liken that to an organic chemistry course where you are in this very challenging situation, and the stakes are pretty high for a lot of my students,” he said.
“I want to be a good guide. I want to make sure they’re prepared… then I want them to plant their flag at the top of Mount Everest, and then I want to help them home alive.”
He pointed out that the way up to Mount Everest, completing the organic chemistry course, is only half the journey. The descent is equally as important, or in this case, taking what was learned through their courses and applying them to the real world.
Most of all, he knows that there is greatness within each of his students. He doesn’t want them to settle for anything less.
“I got into the best graduate school I applied to, which to me, that’s what I want for all of my students,” he said. “I want them to get the job they want. I don’t want them to settle… I want them to get into the graduate program they want— their number one choice. Not their second choice, not their last choice.”
His greatest advice to his students is to “find something about every course you take that is really interesting to you. It will help you find the motivation and passion to study the subject.”
Werner has lived his life guided by passion. He pursued a career in chemistry despite the challenges he knew he would face, because he loved the subject.
“I sometimes joke that I fell in love with the wrong woman,” Werner said. “Organic chemistry has this terrible reputation of being just the most difficult undergraduate course, but for me, I really appreciated how methodical it was.”
It was also because of passion that he ended up back in Cedar City. Werner loves southern Utah and SUU, just as he does organic chemistry, and now he is able to nurture his two loves together.
Author: Heather Turner
Editor: Kayd Johanson
Photos Courtesy of Nathan Werner
eic@suunews.net
This article was originally published in the February 2025 edition in the University Journal.
