Four Faculty Members Receive Prestigious Chemistry Awards

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Four Northwestern University faculty members in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences -- Omar Farha, Mercouri Kanatzidis, Chad Mirkin and Richard Van Duyne -- have received honors from the Royal Society of Chemistry in the U.K.

Each year the society presents prizes and awards to individuals, teams and organizations from around the world for outstanding achievements advancing the chemical sciences.

Those honored at Northwestern this year are:

Omar Farha, research professor of chemistry, is the recipient of the Royal Society of Chemistry Environment, Sustainability and Energy Division Early Career Award. The prize recognizes outstanding contributions to the chemical sciences in the area of environment, sustainability and energy.

Farha’s research spans diverse areas of chemistry and materials science ranging from energy to defense-related challenges. His focus is on the rational design of metal-organic frameworks and porous-organic polymers for sensing, catalysis, storage, separations and light harvesting.

Mercouri Kanatzidis, a Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor in Chemistry, is the recipient of the Royal Society of Chemistry De Gennes Prize. The prize recognizes outstanding and exceptional work in the field of materials chemistry.

Kanatzidis has been active in the field of new thermoelectric materials for more than 20 years. His research has generated seminal work in synthetic metal chalcogenide chemistry and the development of new functional chalcogenide materials.

Chad Mirkin, the George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry, professor of chemical and biological engineering, biomedical engineering, materials science and engineering, and medicine, and director of Northwestern’s International Institute for Nanotechnology, is the recipient of the Royal Society of Chemistry Centenary Prize. The prize recognizes outstanding overseas chemists who are exceptional communicators and invites the winners to give lectures in the U.K.

Mirkin is a world-renowned nanoscience expert known for his discovery and development of spherical nucleic acids (SNAs) and SNA-based biodetection and therapeutic schemes. He is a member of President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Richard Van Duyne, the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry, is the recipient of the Royal Society of Chemistry Theophilus Redwood Award. The honor, named for a 19th-century Welsh chemist, is given to a leading analytical scientist who also is an outstanding communicator.

Van Duyne discovered surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, invented nanosphere lithography, and developed ultrasensitive nanosensors based on localized surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy. His research interests include all forms of surface-enhanced and tip-enhanced spectroscopy, plasmonics, nanoscale biosensors, atomic layer deposition, scanning probe microscopy and ultrafast Raman spectroscopy.

The Royal Society of Chemistry is the largest organization in Europe for advancing the chemical sciences. Forty-seven previous winners of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s awards have gone on to win Nobel prizes for their pioneering work, including Harry Kroto, Fred Sanger and Linus Pauling.