The NACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Catalysis

 
Dead­line for nom­i­na­tions is 15-May-2026
 
The NACS Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis is joint­ly spon­sored by Exxon­Mo­bil Research and Engi­neer­ing and Clariant.

Pur­pose: To rec­og­nize an indi­vid­ual (every two years with a $5,000 prize) who has advanced cat­alyt­ic chem­istry, engi­neer­ing, and/or tech­nol­o­gy by sig­nif­i­cant ser­vice to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty in addi­tion to tech­ni­cal accom­plish­ments. Trav­el costs are pro­vid­ed to the meet­ing where the award is presented.

Rules of Eli­gi­bil­i­ty: A nom­i­nee must have demon­strat­ed exten­sive con­tri­bu­tions to the advance­ment of catal­y­sis dur­ing their career. A diverse array of ser­vice con­tri­bu­tions may be rec­og­nized by the award, includ­ing con­tri­bu­tions and impact of the nom­i­nee as a men­tor, leader, and role mod­el. An awardee must have made these con­tri­bu­tions to the ben­e­fit of the North Amer­i­can catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty. Valu­ing equi­ty, diver­si­ty, and inclu­sive­ness, NACS is strong­ly com­mit­ted to rec­og­niz­ing excep­tion­al indi­vid­u­als via a wel­com­ing nom­i­na­tion and eval­u­a­tion process. NACS encour­ages nom­i­na­tions of qual­i­fied indi­vid­u­als of all ori­gins, races, reli­gions, gen­ders, and gen­der iden­ti­ties. Posthu­mous awards will be made only when knowl­edge of the awardee’s death is received after announce­ment of the selec­tion jury’s decision.

The nom­i­na­tion mate­ri­als should describe clear­ly, specif­i­cal­ly, and con­cise­ly the nominee’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions and accom­plish­ments in the con­text of the spe­cif­ic award. These mate­ri­als should include the fol­low­ing doc­u­ments (sub­mit­ted as a sin­gle PDF file and not exceed­ing the indi­cat­ed length): (i) a nom­i­na­tion let­ter (1000 words); (ii) two sup­port­ing let­ters (800 words each); (iii) a nar­ra­tive bio­graph­i­cal note (500 words); and (iv) a cur­ricu­lum vitae, includ­ing rel­e­vant posi­tions and recog­ni­tions and a list of pub­li­ca­tions and patents. The nom­i­na­tion and sup­port­ing let­ters should be spe­cif­ic to the year and to the name of the award. All nom­i­na­tion pack­ages (one elec­tron­ic copy) for the Ser­vice Award should be sent to Jing­guang Chen, Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety at jgchen@columbia.edu. Nom­i­na­tions for the 2027 Award will close by 15-May-2026. Receipt of any nom­i­na­tion will be con­firmed by an email mes­sage sent to any nominator.

 

Previous Award Winners

  • 2010 W. Nicholas Delgass
  • 2012 John Armor
  • 2014 Burtron H. Davis
  • 2016 Gary L. Haller
  • 2018 Alex­is T. Bell
  • 2021 Enrique Iglesia
  • 2023 Stu­art Soled
  • 2025 Bruce Gates