Catherine Middlecamp is the Director of the Chemistry Learning Center and a Distinguished Faculty Associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She teaches general chemistry for liberal arts students and a graduate seminar to prepare future faculty entitled, "The Teaching of Chemistry." Over the past 20 years, she has designed, supervised, and taught in a number of programs for students under-represented in the sciences, both collegiate and pre-collegiate. The Chemistry Learning Center, for example, provides tutoring, advising, and support for a large number of at-risk students in chemistry courses enrolling more than 4000 students per year. In spring of 2003, she will co-teach a course on uranium and the Navajo people, the first course in the Department of Chemistry designed to meet the campus-wide ethnic studies requirement. Many of her students have gone on to highly successful careers in academics, medicine, and other fields.

Middlecamp is a co-author of the 3rd and 4th editions of Chemistry in Context, a project of the American Chemical Society, a textbook for non-science majors that teaches "real world" chemistry as it relates to social issues. She is co-author of the book, How to Survive and Even Excel in General Chemistry, and has contributed chapters to several books on women in science. In 2000, she was elected as a Councilor to the National Executive Board of the Association for Women in Science. She has contributed to two projects at the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), one as a national advisory board member for the project "Women and Scientific Literacy" (1994 -1999) and currently as a faculty fellow for the project Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities (SENCER). In the ACS Division of Chemical Education, she serves both on the Program Committee and on the Committee for Computers in Chemical Education.

She did her undergraduate studies at Cornell University (1968-72), graduating Phi Beta Kappa. She received a Danforth Fellowship for graduate study, and earned her doctorate in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1976. She also received a masters degree in 1989 from the School of Education at UW-Madison.

The Women Chemists Committee (WCC) Regional Awards for Contributions to Diversity recognize individuals who have significantly stimulated or fostered diversity in the chemical enterprises. This program commemorates the 75th Anniversary of the Women Chemists Committee (1927-2002).