awards
Werner Blank wins Tess Award in coatings The American Chemical Society Division of Polymeric Materials: Science & Engineering will present the 1997 Roy W. Tess Award in Coatings to Werner J. Blank, vice president for coating and lubricant additive products R&D at King Industries, Norwalk, Conn. The Tess Award is presented annually to recognize outstanding contributions to coatings science and technology and is funded by a grant from Roy W. Tess and his wife. Blank will receive the award—a cash prize and a plaque—at the fall ACS national meeting in Las Vegas. Blank is best known for elucidating the reaction mechanisms of amino-formaldehyde resins. His work on amino resins has produced commercial resins with reduced formaldehyde emissions, increased cure response, and improved durability. Such resins are often used in automotive top coats, but Blank's work has been extended for use in chemically amplified photoresists. Blank also has made many contributions to polymer chemistry in enhanced oil recovery, waterborne industrial primers, reactive diluents, organic corrosion inhibitors, and other areas. Blank was educated in chemical engineering at the Textile Research Institute in Vienna, Austria, and worked in the German and Austrian chemical industries. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1965 and joined American Cyanamid as a research chemist. When he left Cyanamid in 1986 to join King Industries, he was the technical director of the oil field chemical department. Blank has written 25 papers and holds 35 U.S. patents.^
ship Affairs Committee. O'Connor received a B.S. degree from Seton Hall University, South Orange, N.J., in 1950, and an M.S. degree from Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, N.J., in 1955.^
St. Louis Award goes to Kevin Moeller Kevin D. Moeller, professor of chemistry at Washington University, St. Louis, is the winner of the 28th St. Louis Award, given by the ACS St. Louis Section and sponsored by Monsanto. The award recognizes a section member for excellence in research and for contributions to the scientific community. Moeller received the award for his "revolutionary use of electrochemistry as a tool for organic synthesis." The award consists of $1,000 and a plaque. Moeller's work has led to the development of chemical probes for mapping receptor sites and has also demonstrated the utility of anodic electrochemistry for problem solving in organic and medicinal chemistry. Moeller's goal in using electrochemistry as a synthetic tool is to develop a general set of molecular probes for examining the relationship between the predicted and actual biological activity of peptidebased hormones and drug candidates. His use of electrochemistry for examining cation radical intermediates and initiating oxidative cyclization reactions has shed light on the nature and reactivity of
North Jersey service award to O'Connor Joseph M. O'Connor, a retired senior research scientist from Ciba-Geigy, was the recipient of the 1996 Burton C. Belden Distinguished Service Award from the ACS North Jersey Section. The award, which consists of $200 and a plaque, recognizes a member of the section for conspicuous merit in service to the section. O'Connor was a member of the section's Executive Committee in 1996. O'Connor has served ACS and his section extensively. Within the North Jersey Section, he was topical group chair, treasurer, and councilor. At the national level, O'Connor was a member of the Committee on Professional Relations and the Member-
Moeller
the intermediates generated at anode surfaces. This work, in contrast to earlier findings, showed that several radical cation-based reactions led to radical intermediates at the terminating end of cyclization. Moeller received a B.S. degree in chemistry in 1980 and a Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry in 1985, both from the University of California, Santa Barbara.^
Nominations solicited for ACS divisional awards 1998 Award for Cooperative Research in Polymer Science & Engineering. The ACS Division of Polymeric Materials: Science & Engineering will accept nominations for this award through June 1. Sponsored by Eastman Kodak, the award recognizes and encourages sustained collaborative research of importance to polymer science and technology between industrial and academic or industrial and national laboratory scientists. The award consists of $2,000, a plaque, and a travel allowance to attend the meeting at which the award is presented. The award may be given to an individual or shared between an academic and industrial scientist or between a national laboratory and an industrial scientist. Nominations should include a brief curriculum vitae of the nominee(s) and significant evidence of collaborative research including supporting letters explaining the significance of the research. Nominations should be sent to S. Richard Turner, Research Laboratories, P.O. Box 1972, Eastman Chemical Co., Kingsport, Tenn. 37662. Division of Organic Chemistry 1997/98 academic-year fellowships. Applications for the fellowships must be received by the division by June 6. Ph.D. students in their third or fourth year of study are eligible for the $15,000 fellowships. The candidate's Ph.D. adviser should submit three copies of all nomination material to Philip DeShong, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, Md. 20742. The candidate's résumé should be included with a list of publications and preprints of unpublished papers and two letters of recommendation, one of which should be from the candidate's thesis adviser and commenting on the academic record, productivity, and career potential of the candidate. Candidates must be U.S. citizens or permanent visa holders.^ MAY 12, 1997 C&EN 51
