Kimberley Cousins, Ph.D.

Kimberley Cousins, professor of chemistry and chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has risen steadily through the academic ranks, earning recognition for her extensive list of accomplishments every step of the way. She joined Cal State Bernardino in 1991 as an assistant professor, was named associate professor in 1997, became a full professor in 2004 and was named department chair in 2017.

She received CSUSB’s top teaching award, the Golden Apple for Excellence in Teaching Award in 2008, and was named the university’s 2019-20 Outstanding Professor.

She has served as a leader through her involvement in the Faculty Senate and the CSUSB Teaching Academy, and serves on numerous departmental retention, promotion and tenure committees both in and outside her department.

During her career, she has written or co-authored proposals that have been awarded nearly $20 million in funding from public and private agencies, the majority of which has been to ensure that low-income, underrepresented minorities have opportunities to enter STEM fields.

Cousins is the principal or co-investigator for several multi-million-dollar grants from the National Science Foundation for the S-STEM program (“Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), and has served as director of the program since 2011.   

Cousins is also the principal investigator for the Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology II (CREST II) program, the second $5 million NSF grant awarded to the college’s Center for Advanced Functional Materials (CAFM). (She was co-investigator for the first $5 million NSF awarded to the program.) The funds help broaden CSUSB’s capacity to recruit and retain diverse students pursing STEM degrees and careers, as well as strengthen research collaborations with institutions and local community colleges to help students advance through the academic pipeline.

Cousins obtained her B.S. in chemistry in 1984 from Duke University and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1991 from the University of Texas at Austin. She was a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teaching-Research Fellow (1989-90) at Hendrix College, Conway Arkansas. In 1991 she was a lecturer at Southwestern University (Georgetown, Texas) and Austin Community College (Austin, Texas).