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2011 ACS NATIONAL AWARD WINNERS Recipients are HONORED FOR CONTRIBUTIONS of major significance to chemistry
ACS AWARD FOR ENCOURAGING DISADVANTAGED STUDENTS INTO CAREERS IN THE CHEMICAL SCIENCES Sponsored by the Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation Evidently, it’s not an uncommon story for today’s working chemists to have had aspirations of becoming physicians. Not uncommon, that is, until an inspirational teacher in a young person’s life catalyzed a change in plans. That’s how it was for Wilfredo (Freddy) Colón, 45, who grew up poor in New York City and Puerto Rico. “Through high school, I was never exposed to a chemist or knew why chemistry was important,” he says. But when he attended a community college, “excellent chemistry teachers piqued my interest in chemistry for the first time.” Then as an undergrad at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, Colón was Colón
turned on to chemical research through his work with professor Maria A. Aponte, leading to his decision to pursue a doctorate. Colón received that Ph.D. in chemistry from Texas A&M University in 1993 and went on to postdoctoral research with Heinrich Roder at Fox Chase Cancer Center, in Philadelphia, as a National Science Foundation Minority Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Now an associate professor in the department of chemistry and chemical biology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Colón pursues his passion for involving students in research. Giving high school students an exposure to research and chemistry that he missed at their age has been one of his most rewarding experiences, he says. According to Zaida C. Morales-Martínez, professor emerita with Florida International University and an ACS Scholars Program mentoring consultant: “Since Freddy joined RPI in 1997 he has been recruiting minorities for his laboratory and for the school. In this day and age where publications are so needed to earn tenure and full professorship, Freddy has taken time to write grant proposals to bring high school and undergraduate students to RPI for the summer to engage in honest-to-goodness research.” One of those undergrads, Diane Bayron, was a junior at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, when she learned that she’d been accepted into the summer research program at RPI. Like Colón, Bayron says that although she’s interested in medicine, she didn’t want to be a doctor, so biomedical research was perfect in her case. “The facilities in Colón’s lab are impressive, and the professor was always paying attention to my work,” she says. “The grad students always helped WILFRE DO COLÓN
FOLLOWING IS THE FIFTH set of vignettes of recipients of awards administered by the American Chemical Society for 2011. C&EN will publish the vignettes of the remaining recipients in February issues. A profile of Ahmed H. Zewail, the 2011 Priestley Medalist, is scheduled to appear in the March 28 issue of C&EN along with his award address. Most of the award recipients will be honored at an awards ceremony that will be held on Tuesday, March 29, in conjunction with the 241st ACS national meeting in Anaheim, Calif. However, the Arthur C. Cope Scholar awardees will be honored at the 242nd ACS national meeting in Denver, Aug. 28–Sept. 1.
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each other, and professor Colón was open to any question.” Colón’s research focuses on understanding the role of protein stability in protein function, folding, misfolding, and aggregation. His group’s long-term goal is to understand the role of protein stability and aggregation in misfolding diseases and to engineer or design long-lived proteins for industrial purposes. Colón says he is hoping to use funds from this award to start a program with a nearby community college “to provide counseling and research opportunities to students who might be in the same situation I was.” Some of the awardee’s other honors include his 2007 election as an American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow, a 2000 National Science Foundation Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists & Engineers, and a Research Corporation Innovation Award in 1999. As Morales-Martínez says succinctly, “This is a dedicated professor who is doing his part to change the face of chemistry.” Colón will present the award address before the ACS Division of Biological Chemistry.—ARLENE GOLDBERG-GIST
ACS AWARD FOR CREATIVE WORK IN FLUORINE CHEMISTRY Sponsored by Honeywell Few elements are valued enough to support their own field of chemical research. Fluorine, however, is one. With its high electronegativity and low molecular weight, fluorine possesses qualities that make it useful in a variety of applications. Throughout his career, Alain Tressaud has advanced solid-state fluorine chemistry in a variety of ways. As a research director for the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), a government-funded research organization under France’s Ministry of Research, Tressaud has examined fluorides of transition-metal elements, discovered a new series of magnetic materials, and created stable catalysts for the synthesis of chlorofluorocarbon substitutes. “He has prepared new, improved materials for uses in fields such as catalysis, energy storage, and optics,” says Karl O. Christe, research professor at the University of Southern California. “His pioneering
tal fluorine, was the first Frenchman to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Since 1992, Tressaud has served as research director for CNRS, where he has worked in different capacities since 1976. Before that, he worked at the University of Bordeaux. Tressaud presented the award address at the Biennial Winter Fluorine Conference earlier this month in St. Pete Beach, Fla.—DAVID PITTMAN
E. BRIGHT WILSON AWARD IN SPECTROSCOPY Sponsored by Coherent Inc. and ACS Veronica Vaida’s colleagues call her a superb experimental spectroscopist whose work elegantly demonstrates the role that photochemical processes play in atmospheric chemistry. Early contributions to the field by Vaida, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Colorado (CU), Boulder, involved the use of absorption spectroscopy to investigate reactive excited states. Notable examples include her use of spectroscopy with supersonic jet techniques to obtain information about the photodissociation of electronic states of molecules including NH3 and the OClO radical. Studies of atmospherically relevant species have enhanced her reputation. For instance, along with Susan Solomon, senior scientist at the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Ad- Vaida ministration (NOAA), Vaida has shown how ultraviolet light reacts with chlorine dioxide to catalyze ozone loss. The spectroscopic results uncovered new photochemical reactions and allowed interpretation of atmospheric field measurements of chlorine dioxide. More recently, Vaida and her collaborators—James Donaldson of the University of Toronto and Adrian F. Tuck of the NOAA Aeronomy Laboratory—have shown that
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sunlight’s red wavelengths can initiate photochemical reactions in the ground electronic state of atmospheric molecules not previously known to photoreact by this or any other photochemical mechanism. Spectroscopy in the infrared and near infrared not only revealed new reactions in sulfuric, nitric, and organic acids important in planetary atmospheres, but as shown in a collaboration with her CU Boulder colleague Rex T. Skodje, these reactions occur very fast and can be catalyzed by water. Among the challenging projects her lab has undertaken is the study of photoreactivity in molecular clusters. Such work has yielded new insights into solution-phase photochemistry and probes the role of water clusters in the absorption of solar radiation, climate, and climate change. “First and foremost,” says a colleague, “Dr. Vaida is a superb experimental chemist.” The colleague further commends her for developing a “remarkable range” of state-of-the-art tools to probe the spectroscopy and dynamics of small molecules. “Vaida’s work has been eye-opening to me and to many other atmospheric chemists,” the colleague adds, and “she has repeatedly demonstrated new aspects of how reactions critical to atmospheric change actually occur.” Another who admires her work calls Vaida an “intellectual and professional leader.” Her efforts, he notes, “vigorously encouraged the chemical physics community to bring its expertise to bear on atmospheric problems while simultaneously building connections to the atmospheric science community.” In 1973 Vaida received a B.S. in chemistry from Brown University, and in 1977 she earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from Yale University. Until 1979, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. She continued on there as an assistant and then associate professor until 1990, when she joined CU Boulder. In 1984, Vaida was a Camille & Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. In 1994, she received the Erskine Fellowship from the University of Canterbury, in New Zealand, and between 2004 and 2005 she was a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellow. She has been a fellow of the AmeriCIRES/U OF COLORADO, BOULDER
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work has provided important insight into the correlations between structure and properties.” Tressaud, 67, has become internationally known for his ability to correlate physical structure with the chemical and electrical properties of solid-state fluorine compounds, particularly with transition elements. “In mixed-valency palladium fluoride Pd2F6, he gave evidence and explained the so-far highest jumps Tressaud of electrical conductivity under high pressure observed in a fluoride compound,” says Paul Hagenmuller of the University of Bordeaux, in France. The French-born Tressaud found that intercalating La2CuO4 with elemental fluorine turned the insulator into a superconductor. In the field of metallic conductors, Tressaud found fluorine-intercalated graphite fibers approached the conductivity of copper. His lab also discovered and characterized families of ferrimagnetic and ferromagnetic fluorides. “In addition to fundamental research, Alain Tressaud has persistently sought to emphasize the fundamental importance and applications of the fluorinated materials he has synthesized in the fields of catalysis, fine chemicals manufacturing, medical technology (biomaterials), nuclear energy, automotive technology, wood protection, microelectronics, optics, and energy storage,” says Gary J. Schrobilgen, professor of chemistry at McMaster University, in Ontario. Beyond the lab, Tressaud has edited or coedited five books on myriad topics including health, the environment, and materials. He has served as guest editor of six special-issue international journals. “One of the important aspects of Alain’s personality is his charisma,” which helped him to bring scientists together, Hagenmuller says. For instance, he’s involved with cooperative programs in 12 countries that have yielded more than 130 joint papers. In 2002, Tressaud created the French Fluorine Network, which aims to link similar organizations worldwide, including the ACS Division of Fluorine Chemistry. He organized, in November 2006, a national symposium honoring the 100th anniversary of Henri Moissan’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Moissan, who isolated elemen-
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Sponsored by Givaudan For someone who says chemistry was the most difficult subject he encountered in his early years at college, Robert M. Williams has surely proven his mettle. He is being honored with this award for his “creative and judicious deployment of natural products total synthesis to interrogate hypotheses concerning the biomechanism and/or biosynthesis of complex, biologically significant natural products.” “I have a personality that gravitates toward challenge, not away from it,” says Williams, 57, the University Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. That drive led him to seek the intellectual challenges involved in chemical synthesis while working as an undergraduate under Nobel Laureate Ei-ichi Negishi at Syracuse University. Williams earned a B.A. in chemistry at Syracuse in 1975 and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979. In R. B. Woodward’s lab at Harvard University from 1979 to 1980, Williams performed postdoctoral work focused on the total synthesis of erythWilliams romycin A, an antimicrobial compound. After the stint at Harvard, he became an assistant professor at CSU. “There are new discoveries and puzzles at every turn,” Williams says of his decades researching the biosynthesis and mechanism of biologically active natural products. “It’s very stimulating and exciting to be a discoverer/explorer.” Williams has “applied a rigorous battery of organic syntheses to probe the
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ACS AWARD IN ORGANOMETALLIC CHEMISTRY Sponsored by Dow Chemical Co. Foundation “When you think Wolczanski, think bulky!” That lab slogan says a lot about the chemistry of Cornell University’s Peter T. Wolczanski, who is being honored for his pioneering work on low-coordinate and multinuclear transition-metal complexes in which steric features of the ligands figure prominently. In many of Wolczanski’s key contributions, bulky tri-tert-butylmethoxide (tritox), tri-tert-butylsiloxide (silox), tri-tert-butylsilamide and -imide, and alkoxyalkylphosphine ligands play critical roles. Major areas of focus using these ligands in his lab include the activation of small molecules such as O2 and CO; related C–H, C–C, and C–X (X = heteroatom) bond cleavages in larger molecules; and cooperative reactivity between early and late transition metals. For example, the bulky ligands enable the synthesis of some highly reactive molecules, such as Ta(silox)3, which is a low-valent species capable of cleaving the strong C–O bond to form an oxide and a dicarbide. Tantalum hydride complexes containing silox ligands also facilitate C–O scission and C–H and C–C bond-forming reactions. A related ditungsten complex has further been shown to cleave C–O, forming a ditungsten carbide linkage. These reactions model crucial steps in the important Fischer-Tropsch synthesis of hydrocarbons from synthesis gas. Perhaps Wolczanski’s most fundamental discovery is that the higher density of energy states in second-row transition metals relative to third-row species affords generally swifter reactivity. “Wolczanski’s synthetic talents and mechanistic approach, in combination with a rare ability to understand electronic structure, sets him apart,” comments John E. Bercaw of California Institute of Technology. “He has thus been able to attack a diverse array of problems in organometallic chemistry, ranging from physical organometallic chemistry to aspects of stoichiometric transformations critical to EL IZABET H A. WO O D
ERNEST GUENTHER AWARD IN THE CHEMISTRY OF NATURAL PRODUCTS
mechanistic aspects related to the biological chemistry of several classes of natural products and to elucidate the pathways involved in the biosynthesis of several important families of natural products,” says Yoshito Kishi, the Morris Loeb Professor of Chemistry Emeritus at Harvard who took over as Williams’ postdoctoral supervisor after Woodward passed away in 1979. Williams developed a versatile template for the asymmetric synthesis of amino acids and other nitrogencontaining compounds. He also elucidated mechanisms of action for several antitumor drugs, leading to the design and synthesis of new agents with therapeutic potential. In the biosynthesis field, Williams says, his work has helped shift the focus of natural product total synthesis from the end product of a multistep biosynthetic pathway to the intermediates generated along the way. “All of these Wolczanski intermediates are natural products themselves and attractive targets for synthesis,” he says. “The total synthesis accomplishment should be a beginning of a larger, more intellectually penetrating program, not the end of a short project.” That far-reaching emphasis is one of the reasons Williams “is a role model for youngsters in the field,” says Phil S. Baran, a professor of chemistry at Scripps Research Institute, in La Jolla, Calif. “He has set an inspiring example.” Williams has received multiple awards, including a 2002 ACS Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award. He has 259 articles published or in press, has authored one book and 12 book chapters, and holds five patents. When Williams isn’t synthesizing in the lab, he enjoys cycling and playing golf in the warm months and downhill skiing in the winter. He also builds furniture and small, specialized items from exotic hardwoods, and he plays lead electric guitar in a band. Williams will present the award address before the ACS Division of Organic Chemistry.—KENNETH MOORE JIL L J. WILLIAMS
can Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) since 2004 and an American Physical Society (APS) fellow since 2004. She is a member of a number of professional organizations, including ACS, APS, and AAAS. Vaida will present the award address before the ACS Division of Physical Chemistry.—MARC REISCH
ACS AWARD FOR AFFORDABLE GREEN CHEMISTRY Sponsored by Dow Chemical and endowed by Rohm and Haas Making lightweight yet hurricane-resistant roofing out of recycled newspapers, chicken feathers, and soybean-derived plastics. Enabling John Deere to manufacture tractor parts with composite resins derived from plant oils. Enticing Intel to test the use of chicken feathers as a raw material in the production of circuit board materials. Doing all these, Richard P. Wool has been busy. For more than 15 years, he has led a highly productive research program at the University of Delaware that has generated affordable green technologies that address
the sustainability challenges facing the plastics and materials industries. Wool heads what is perhaps the most intensive effort since the days of Henry Ford’s all-soy car to turn vegetable oils into high-performance materials with automotive applications. Wool is director of the university’s Affordable Composites from Renewable Resources program. His quest to develop materials from renewable Wool resources has led him to incorporate principles of green chemistry into a multidisciplinary effort spanning chemistry, chemical engineering, physics, and materials science, a senior government official familiar with his work says. There are many benefits to using renewable materials such as vegetable oils and bird feathers in the making of plastics, the official points out. Besides their sustainability, vegetable oils are inherently nonhazardous, resulting in safer manufacturing conditions compared with those involving petrochemical polymers. Some of Wool’s polymers can replace phenolic materials and therefore reduce exposure to formaldehyde, he adds. Other materials designed by Wool and his group are biocompatible and can be applied to wound healing. The holder of a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from the University of Utah, Wool has been a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Delaware since 1994. He is author of the books “Bio-Based Polymers and Composites”—which he cowrote with X. Susan Sun in 2005—and “Polymer Interfaces: Structure and Strength,” published in 1995. He also has published many peer-reviewed papers that together have been cited more than 3,100 times. One of Wool’s most promising technologies is a new type of hurricane-resistant roofing that “has the potential to become the country’s highest-volume application of biobased composite materials,” according to an academic familiar with Wool’s work. The roofing is made mostly from old newspapers, chicken feathers, and soybean-based plastics fitted into lightweight roof material that also offers high thermal insulation, she says. More recently, he developed nontoxic foams that are 96% biobased and designed WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
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to replace polyurethanes made from toluene diisocyanates. The foams can be used in packaging or home insulation, Wool says. Although broadly focused on green materials, Wool’s research interests are eclectic. He is currently interested in hydrogen storage, nanomaterials, pressure-sensitive materials, the twinkling fractal theory of the glass transition, and making carbon fibers from chicken feathers, among others. Wool will present the award address before the ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry.—JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY K AT HY F. AT K IN SO N /U O F DEL AWA R E
our understanding and control of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis. His work is consistently characterized by exceptional depth of thought and rigor. Wolczanski is widely viewed as a true scholar of organometallic chemistry.” Wolczanski, 56, received a B.S. degree in 1976 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. degree in 1981 in Bercaw’s group at Caltech. He joined the faculty at Cornell in 1981 and currently is the George W. & Grace L. Todd Professor of Chemistry. Among his accolades, Wolczanski was an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow for 1987–89, and he was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1999. He served as chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Organometallic Chemistry in 2002 and as chair of the ACS Inorganic Chemistry Division’s Organometallic Subdivision in 1995. He has served on the advisory boards of the ACS journals Organometallics and Inorganic Chemistry, as well as on the technical advisory boards for Dow Chemical and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Wolczanski lives with his family “in a wooded area, where we fight a neverending battle against the evil forces of nature—that is, deer and weeds,” he says. He spends his leisure time on the golf course with his children or driving all over New York state to watch them play hockey. Wolczanski will present the award address before the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry.—STEVE RITTER
ACS AWARD FOR CREATIVE RESEARCH & APPLICATIONS OF IODINE CHEMISTRY Sponsored by SQM S.A. When Viktor V. Zhdankin was in seventh grade, a home chemistry kit enabled him to make nitrogen triiodide, which releases a cloud of purple smoke when it detonates. “That’s how I got really interested in iodine chemistry,” he says. “It became my favorite chemistry.” Zhdankin, 54, went on to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry from Moscow State University, in Russia, in 1981. His doctoral research in the laboratory of Nikolay S. Zefirov was on the nucleophilic reactivity of perchlorate anions. After finishing his degree, Zhdankin stayed at Moscow State as a research fellow. Trying to extend his doctoral research, he started experimenting with periodate. The compound didn’t work as a nucleophile, but he discovered other “rich and exciting chemistry” of hypervalent iodine reagents, in particular that they tend to be strong electrophiles and good oxidants. Zhdankin came to the U.S. in 1987 as an exchange scholar to work at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He then did postdoctoral research with Peter J. Stang at the University of Utah before returning to Duluth as a professor in 1993. He’s been at Duluth ever since, continuing his research into iodine reagents for organic synthesis. “Iodine(III) and iodine(V) reagents
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in general replace the heavy-metal oxidants, such as derivatives of lead, mercury, thallium, and chromium,” Zhdankin says. “The advantage is that iodine works better as an oxidant and electrophilic reagent, and it’s not toxic at all.” Most recently, he has been developing hypervalent iodine compounds that can be used as catalysts for C–C bond formation and other reactions. “In the future, hypervalent iodine may replace palladium and other transition metals,” Zhdankin says. (It should perhaps be noted that, despite Zhdankin’s early interest in explosive iodine compounds, he now focuses on developing stable, safe reagents.) Notably, he does his research at a primarily undergraduate institution. “Zhdankin nevertheless Zhdankin directs one of the most visible research groups focused on iodine chemistry in the U.S.,” says John D. Protasiewicz of Case Western Reserve University. “His work has had considerable impact on understanding the structure, reactivity, and applications of iodine reagents in organic synthesis.” “Developments in the chemistry of hypervalent iodine are becoming increasingly important in synthetic methodologies. Zhdankin brings to this field an understanding that others have
Founders of the ACS Scholars Program Leadership Circle
missed,” adds University of Maryland chemistry professor Michael P. Doyle, who calls Zhdankin’s accomplishments “extraordinary.” Zhdankin is one of the few U.S. scientists elected to the Japanese Society of Iodine Science. Zhdankin has received a Camille & Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award and several University of Minnesota awards for teaching and research. Zhdankin will present the award address before the ACS Division of Organic Chemistry.—JYLLIAN KEMSLEY
GREEN CHEMISTRY AND ENGINEERING IN BRAZIL THE AMERICAN Chemical Society is collaborating with the
Chemical Institute of Canada and People to People Citizen Ambassador Programs, an educational travel provider, to offer an opportunity for chemists and chemical engineers to join a delegation traveling to Brazil on May 14–22 to explore topics in green chemistry and chemical engineering. Nancy B. Jackson, ACS president and manager of the International Chemical Threat Reduction Department at Sandia National Laboratories, and Russell J. Boyd, a professor of chemistry at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and past-president of the Canadian Chemical Society, will lead the delegation in facility walk-throughs, informal social events, and roundtable discussions with professional counterparts in Brazil. Topics will include minimizing waste through the use of catalytic reactions; avoiding the use of solvents, separation agents, or other auxiliary chemicals; and renewing raw material and feedstock. The delegation will explore the world’s largest urban forest, see the massive Christ the Redeemer statue, and visit the São Paulo Art Museum. Tuition is $5,995. RSVP by Feb. 15. For more information, visit peopletopeople.com/jacksonboyd.—LW
Ronald & Esther Breslow
CALL FOR PAPERS FOR I&EC GRADUATE STUDENT SYMPOSIUM
Madeleine Jacobs
THE AMERICAN Chemical Society’s Industrial & Engineering
Madeleine Joullié Diane Scott-Lichter & Robert Lichter Catherine Sigal Richard Silverman Peter Stang Elizabeth Weisburger Our deepest appreciation for the philanthropic leadership demonstrated by these individuals to the ACS Scholars Program.
American Chemical Society www.acs.org/dreams
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Chemistry Division (I&EC) is soliciting papers for its first Graduate Student Award Symposium, which will take place during the fall ACS national meeting in Denver. The division seeks papers that are relevant to industrial and engineering chemistry in general, and/or to the following I&EC subdivisions: Applied Chemical Technology, Green Chemistry & Engineering, Novel Chemistry for Industrial Application, and Separation Science & Technology. Graduate students in the chemical sciences and/or engineering are eligible to apply. Entries should include a research summary of up to 1,800 words, an abstract of fewer than 250 words, and a letter of recommendation from the student’s research adviser. E-mail submissions to the I&EC program secretary at iecprogramchair@ gmail.com. Students must also input their abstracts in the ACS Program & Abstract Creation System at abstracts.acs.org. Successful applicants will present their papers during a symposium at the fall ACS national meeting in Denver. The first-, second-, and third-place presentations will be awarded $750, $500, and $250, respectively, in addition to free meeting registration. The deadline for submissions is March 21. Questions may be directed to Mike Matthews at
[email protected].—LW
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