Israel E. Wachs named 5th Vanadis Award winner

Israel E. Wachs, Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at Lehigh Uni­ver­si­ty, has been named the recip­i­ent of the 5th Vanadis Award. The award was pre­sent­ed fol­low­ing the award lec­ture by Dr. Wachs at the 8th Inter­na­tion­al Vana­di­um Sym­po­sium (V8) held August 15–18, 2012 in Crys­tal City, VA. This bian­nu­al award goes to a researcher hav­ing con­tributed to the chemistry/biological chemistry/toxicology of vana­di­um. Dr. Wachs was select­ed for his well­sto­ried con­tri­bu­tions to vana­di­um sci­ence and con­tri­bu­tions to the area of met­al-oxide-based catal­y­ses.

Dr. Wachs received his under­grad­u­ate edu­ca­tion at The City Col­lege of the City Uni­ver­si­ty of New York (B.E.-ChE) and con­tin­ued his grad­u­ate (PhD-ChE) edu­ca­tion at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty under the men­tor­ship of Pro­fes­sor Robert J. Madix, in the area of sur­face sci­ence. His research find­ings are con­sid­ered the first appli­ca­tion of sur­face sci­ence to het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis. After grad­u­a­tion, he joined the Exxon Research & Engi­neer­ing Com­pa­ny Cor­po­rate Research Labs where he was involved in devel­op­ment of many dif­fer­ent cat­alyt­ic tech­nolo­gies (selec­tive oxi­da­tion, acid catal­y­sis, syn­thet­ic fuel syn­the­sis, hydrodesul­fu­r­iza­tion (HDS) and hydro­car­bon con­ver­sion). One of his inven­tions, i.e., the selec­tive oxi­da­tion of o‑xylene to phthal­ic anhy­dride by vana­di­um oxide/titanium cat­a­lyst sup­ports, is still the lead­ing indus­tri­al cat­a­lyst for this tech­nol­o­gy. Dr. Wachs sub­se­quent­ly joined the fac­ul­ty of the Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing Depart­ment at Lehigh Uni­ver­si­ty. There, he estab­lished a world-class catal­y­sis research lab­o­ra­to­ry focus­ing on oxide cat­alyt­ic mate­ri­als and their char­ac­ter­i­za­tion under reac­tion con­di­tions (in situ and operan­do spec­troscopy). These fun­da­men­tal stud­ies estab­lished a foun­da­tion for molecular/electronic struc­ture – activity/selectivity rela­tion­ships and the mol­e­c­u­lar engi­neer­ing of nov­el oxide cat­a­lysts. One of the emphases of Dr. Wachs’ research has been on the fun­da­men­tals and applied aspects of sup­port­ed vana­di­um oxide het­ero­ge­neous cat­a­lysts for envi­ron­men­tal appli­ca­tions (for reduc­tion of acid gas emis­sions from pow­er plants and paper mills). More recent­ly, he has extend­ed his research on vana­di­um oxide catal­y­sis to aque­ous enzyme mim­ics. Dr. Wachs’ sci­en­tif­ic research accom­plish­ments are inter­na­tion­al­ly known and have received recog­ni­tion by EPA, ACS, AIChE, the Hum­boldt Foun­da­tion, and now, the Inter­na­tion­al Vana­di­um Sym­po­sium.

His­tor­i­cal­ly, the Vanadis Award has been pre­sent­ed on the basis of doc­u­ment­ed con­tri­bu­tions of a sci­en­tist to the area(s) or com­bi­na­tions of vana­di­um chem­istry, bio­chem­istry, biol­o­gy, or phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sci­ences. The award is specif­i­cal­ly giv­en to an indi­vid­ual who has con­tributed inno­v­a­tive research and had a impact on direc­tion of their field(s) — in terms of devel­op­ment of new appli­ca­tions and last­ing impact as tes­ti­fied by the ser­vice of the nom­i­nee to the over­all progress, appli­ca­tion, and explo­ration of new uses of vana­di­um in sci­ence. Can­di­dates for the Vanadis Award can be nom­i­nat­ed by any mem­ber of the vana­di­um com­mu­ni­ty; the awardee is select­ed by an inter­na­tion­al com­mit­tee of experts in the sci­ence of vana­di­um. Pre­vi­ous win­ners of the Vanadis Award have been Deb­bie C. Crans (2004), Dieter Rehder (2006), Toshikazu Hirao (2008), and Vin­cent L. Pec­o­raro (2010).

If you would like more infor­ma­tion about this award, the 2012 award selec­tion or the Inter­na­tion­al Vana­di­um Sym­po­sium, please con­tact Deb­bie Crans at 970–491-7635 or Craig McLauch­lan at 309–438-7019.

Southwest Catalysis Society Award for Excellence in Applied Catalysis

The South­west Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (SWCS) Award for Excel­lence in Applied Catal­y­sis will be pre­sent­ed at its Spring Sym­po­sium (April 25) to Dr. Heiko Wein­er, Prin­ci­pal R&D Chemist, Celanese. Heiko’s impor­tant work on the hydro­gena­tion of acetic acid to ethanol and eth­yl acetate has been applied com­mer­cial­ly in 2012 and a sec­ond com­mer­cial plant is expect­ed online soon. Heiko’s work was com­plet­ed at the Celanese Clear Lake, Texas office in the SWCS region, and fol­lowed the cat­a­lyst dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment process from high through­put screen­ing, opti­miza­tion, scale-up and all the way through to com­mer­cial­iza­tion. The award includes a $1500 cash prize as well as an invi­ta­tion to present a keynote address at the 2015 SWCS Spring Sym­po­sium.

Dr. Haiying Chen is the Winner of the 2014 Herman Pines Award in Catalysis

Haiying_ChenThe Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go is pleased to announce that Dr. Haiy­ing Chen (John­son Matthey) is the recip­i­ent of the 2014 Her­man Pines Award in Catal­y­sis. This Award is giv­en to rec­og­nize Dr. Chen’s sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the advance­ment of envi­ron­ment catal­y­sis and tech­nol­o­gy. Dr. Chen’s research has led to the dis­cov­ery and suc­cess­ful devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of (1) small pore mol­e­c­u­lar sieve sup­port­ed tran­si­tion met­al cat­a­lysts for the Selec­tive Cat­alyt­ic Reduc­tion (SCR) of NOx with NH3; (2) NOx adsor­ber cat­a­lysts for heavy duty diesel emis­sion con­trol; and (3) sus­tain­able tech­nolo­gies for the con­trol of volatile organ­ic com­pound (VOC) emis­sions from indus­tri­al process­es. In addi­tion, his research has led to the devel­op­ment of low tem­per­a­ture emis­sion con­trol tech­nolo­gies to meet future emis­sion stan­dards.

Dr. Chen has been invit­ed to give lec­tures at var­i­ous uni­ver­si­ties as well as on nation­al and inter­na­tion­al sci­en­tif­ic meet­ings. He has pub­lished 13 patents and over 50 pub­li­ca­tions. In addi­tion, Dr. Chen has served the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty in sev­er­al lead­er­ship roles.

The award includes an hon­o­rar­i­um ($1,000) and a plaque. Dr. Chen will receive this award and deliv­er the Award address at the Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go Spring Sym­po­sium on May 13, 2014 at the BP Research Cen­ter in Naperville, IL.
 

List of past recipients of the Herman Pines Award

 
1999 Harold Kung (North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty)
2000 John Mon­nier (East­man Chem­i­cal)
2001 Lan­ny Schmidt (Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta)
2002 James Brazdil (BP)
2003 James Dumesic (Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin)
2004 Alak Bhat­tacharyya (BP)
2005 Israel Wachs (Lehigh Uni­ver­si­ty)
2006 Jef­frey Miller (BP)
2007 Chun­shan Song (Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty)
2008 Alek­sey Yez­erets (Cum­mins)
2009 Tobin Marks (North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty)
2010 James Rekoske (UOP)
2011 Jing­guang Chen (Uni­ver­si­ty Delaware)
2012 Stu­art Soled (Exxon­Mo­bil)
2013 W. Nicholas Del­gass (Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty)

Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos, Stuart Soled and Stacey Zones elected to the National Academy of Engineering

National Academy of Engineering Elects 67 Members and 11 Foreign Associates

 
WASHINGTON (Feb­ru­ary 6, 2014) — The Nation­al Acad­e­my of Engi­neer­ing (NAE) has elect­ed 67 new mem­bers and 11 for­eign asso­ciates, announced NAE Pres­i­dent C.D. (Dan) Mote Jr. today. This brings the total U.S. mem­ber­ship to 2,250 and the num­ber of for­eign asso­ciates to 214.

Elec­tion to the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Engi­neer­ing is among the high­est pro­fes­sion­al dis­tinc­tions accord­ed to an engi­neer. Acad­e­my mem­ber­ship hon­ors those who have made out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to “engi­neer­ing research, prac­tice, or edu­ca­tion, includ­ing, where appro­pri­ate, sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the engi­neer­ing lit­er­a­ture,” and to the “pio­neer­ing of new and devel­op­ing fields of tech­nol­o­gy, mak­ing major advance­ments in tra­di­tion­al fields of engi­neer­ing, or developing/implementing inno­v­a­tive approach­es to engi­neer­ing edu­ca­tion.”

A list of the new­ly elect­ed mem­bers and for­eign asso­ciates fol­lows, with their pri­ma­ry affil­i­a­tions at the time of elec­tion and a brief state­ment of their prin­ci­pal engi­neer­ing accom­plish­ments.

New Members

  • Abbott, Nicholas, John T. and Mag­dalen L. Sob­o­ta Pro­fes­sor, and direc­tor, Mate­ri­als Research and Engi­neer­ing Cen­ter, Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin, Madi­son. For inno­va­tions and appli­ca­tions in soft-mat­ter sur­face sci­ence.
  • All­cock, Har­ry R., Evan Pugh Pro­fes­sor of Chem­istry, Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty, Uni­ver­si­ty Park. For devel­op­ment of polyphos­p­hazenes, a new class of bio­ma­te­ri­als.
  • Alle­bach, Jan P., Hewlett-Packard Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor of Elec­tri­cal and Com­put­er Engi­neer­ing, Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty, West Lafayette, Ind. For devel­op­ment of algo­rithms for dig­i­tal image half-ton­ing for imag­ing and print­ing.
  • Arvizu, Dan E., direc­tor and chief exec­u­tive offi­cer, Nation­al Renew­able Ener­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry, Gold­en, Colo. For lead­er­ship in the renew­able and clean ener­gy sec­tors, and for pro­mot­ing nation­al bal­anced ener­gy poli­cies.
  • Atkins III, Daniel E., W.K. Kel­logg Pro­fes­sor in Com­mu­ni­ty Infor­ma­tion, School of Infor­ma­tion; pro­fes­sor of elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing and com­put­er sci­ence, Col­lege of Engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan, Ann Arbor. For lead­er­ship in devel­op­ment of radix algo­rithms and cybertech­ni­cal col­lab­o­ra­tive sys­tems.
  • Bak­er, James K., con­sul­tant; and co-founder and for­mer chair­man and chief exec­u­tive offi­cer, Drag­on Sys­tems, Mait­land, Fla. For intro­duc­ing hid­den Markov mod­els to speech pro­cess­ing and appli­ca­tions to com­mer­cial speech-recog­ni­tion sys­tems.
  • Balser, Mar­tin, dis­tin­guished tech­ni­cal fel­low, Northrop Grum­man Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems, Wood­land Hills, Calif. For con­tri­bu­tions to the U.S. Navy’s capa­bil­i­ties in acoustics and flu­id mechan­ics.
  • Banks, M. Kather­ine, vice chan­cel­lor, dean of engi­neer­ing, and Harold J. Haynes Dean’s Chair Pro­fes­sor, Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty, Col­lege Sta­tion. For con­tri­bu­tions to phy­tore­me­di­a­tion of petro­le­um con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, and for lead­er­ship in engi­neer­ing edu­ca­tion.
  • Bar­rett, Har­ri­son H., Regents’ Pro­fes­sor of Radi­ol­o­gy, Regents’ Pro­fes­sor of Opti­cal Sci­ences, and Regents’ Pro­fes­sor of Applied Math­e­mat­ics, Uni­ver­si­ty of Ari­zona, Tuc­son. For con­tri­bu­tions to the phys­i­cal and sta­tis­ti­cal foun­da­tions and appli­ca­tions of radi­o­log­i­cal and nuclear med­ical imag­ing.
  • Bern­stein, Howard, chief sci­en­tif­ic offi­cer, Sev­enth Sense Biosys­tems Inc., Cam­bridge, Mass. For devel­op­ment of com­mer­cial nan­otech­nol­o­gy prod­ucts for ther­a­peu­tics and diag­nos­tics.
  • Bethell, Peter J., senior process con­sul­tant, Arch Coal Inc., Scott Depot, W.Va. For con­tri­bu­tions to advanced sep­a­ra­tion tech­nolo­gies for coal pro­cess­ing.
  • Board, Mark P., cor­po­rate direc­tor of geot­ech­ni­cal engi­neer­ing, Hecla Min­ing Co., Coeur d’A­lene, Ida­ho. For con­tri­bu­tions to the design of large-scale mines based on appli­ca­tion of advanced rock mechan­ics prin­ci­ples.
  • Boroye­vich, Dushan, Amer­i­can Elec­tric Pow­er Pro­fes­sor of Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing, and co-direc­tor, Cen­ter for Pow­er Elec­tron­ics Sys­tems, Vir­ginia Poly­tech­nic Insti­tute and State Uni­ver­si­ty, Blacks­burg. For advance­ments in con­trol, mod­el­ing, and design of elec­tron­ic pow­er con­ver­sion for elec­tric ener­gy and trans­porta­tion.
  • Boston, Ter­ry, pres­i­dent and chief exec­u­tive offi­cer, PJM Inter­con­nec­tion, Nor­ris­town, Pa. For lead­er­ship in devel­op­ment and oper­a­tion of large elec­tric grids and mar­kets for whole­sale elec­tric­i­ty.
  • Bou­los, Paul Fares, pres­i­dent, chief oper­at­ing offi­cer, and chief tech­ni­cal offi­cer, Innovyze, Broom­field, Colo. For con­tri­bu­tions to the­o­ry and prac­tice of com­pu­ta­tion­al hydraulics sim­u­la­tion tech­nol­o­gy for water infra­struc­ture.
  • Boyd, Stephen P., Sam­sung Pro­fes­sor in the School of Engi­neer­ing; and pro­fes­sor, Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems Lab­o­ra­to­ry, depart­ment of elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing, Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, Stan­ford, Calif. For con­tri­bu­tions to engi­neer­ing design and analy­sis via con­vex opti­miza­tion.
  • Braun, Robert D., David and Andrew Lewis Pro­fes­sor of Space Tech­nol­o­gy, and co-direc­tor, Space Sys­tems Design Lab­o­ra­to­ry, Geor­gia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, Atlanta. For con­tri­bu­tions to space explo­ration and tech­nolo­gies for enter­ing plan­e­tary atmos­pheres from space.
  • Briskman, Robert D., co-founder and tech­ni­cal exec­u­tive, Sir­ius XM Radio, North Bethes­da, Md. For achieve­ments in satel­lite com­mu­ni­ca­tions, cul­mi­nat­ing in Sir­ius XM Radio.
  • Car­bonell, Ruben G., Frank Hawkins Kenan Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, North Car­oli­na State Uni­ver­si­ty, Raleigh. For research and inno­va­tion in mul­ti­phase reac­tor design, high-pres­sure thin-film coat­ing, and nov­el biosep­a­ra­tion process­es.
  • Chan, Tony F., pres­i­dent, Hong Kong Uni­ver­si­ty of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy, Kowloon. For numer­i­cal tech­niques applied to image pro­cess­ing and sci­en­tif­ic com­put­ing, and for pro­vid­ing engi­neer­ing lead­er­ship at the nation­al and inter­na­tion­al lev­els.
  • Cramb, Alan W., provost, senior vice pres­i­dent for aca­d­e­m­ic affairs, and Charles and Lee Fin­kl Pro­fes­sor of Met­al­lur­gi­cal and Mate­ri­als Engi­neer­ing, Illi­nois Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, Chica­go. For con­tri­bu­tions to devel­op­ment of high-integri­ty con­tin­u­ous­ly cast steels.
  • Dagan­zo, Car­los F., Chan­cel­lor Pro­fes­sor of the Grad­u­ate School, and retired Robert Horon­j­eff Chair in Civ­il and Envi­ron­men­tal Engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley. For engi­neer­ing con­tri­bu­tions to traf­fic, trans­porta­tion, and logis­tics sys­tems and oper­a­tions.
  • Davari, Bijan, IBM Fel­low and vice pres­i­dent, Next Gen­er­a­tion Com­put­ing Sys­tems and Tech­nol­o­gy, IBM T.J. Wat­son Research Cen­ter, York­town Heights, N.Y. For con­tri­bu­tions to scal­ing of CMOS tech­nol­o­gy.
  • Diet­rich, Bren­da L., IBM Fel­low and vice pres­i­dent, and chief tech­nol­o­gy offi­cer for Busi­ness Ana­lyt­ics Soft­ware, IBM, Somers, N.Y. For con­tri­bu­tions to engi­neer­ing algo­rithms, frame­works, and tools to solve com­plex busi­ness prob­lems.
  • Eden, J. Gary, Gilmore Fam­i­ly Endowed Pro­fes­sor­ship of Elec­tri­cal and Com­put­er Engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois, Urbana-Cham­paign. For devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of micro-plas­ma tech­nolo­gies and excimer lasers.
  • Edgar, Thomas Fly­nn, George T. and Gladys H. Abell Endowed Chair in Engi­neer­ing, depart­ment of chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas, Austin. For con­tri­bu­tions to math­e­mat­i­cal mod­el­ing, opti­miza­tion, and auto­mat­ic con­trol of chem­i­cal and micro­elec­tron­ics process­es, and for pro­fes­sion­al lead­er­ship.
  • Elghobashi, Said, pro­fes­sor of mechan­i­cal and aero­space engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Irvine. For con­tri­bu­tions to under­stand­ing and mod­el­ing of mul­ti­phase tur­bu­lent flows.
  • Ershaghi, Iraj, Omar B. Mil­li­gan Chair in Petro­le­um Engi­neer­ing, and direc­tor, Petro­le­um Engi­neer­ing Pro­gram, Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les. For con­tri­bu­tions to char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of com­plex frac­tured reser­voirs, and for lead­er­ship in uni­ver­si­ty-indus­try col­lab­o­ra­tion.
  • Fagin, Ronald, IBM Fel­low, IBM Almaden Research Cen­ter, San Jose, Calif. For con­tri­bu­tions to the­o­ry and prac­tice of data man­age­ment.
  • Fenves, Gre­go­ry L., exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent and provost, Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas, Austin. For con­tri­bu­tions to com­pu­ta­tion­al mod­el­ing, cre­ation of open source soft­ware for earth­quake engi­neer­ing analy­sis, and aca­d­e­m­ic lead­er­ship.
  • Fer­rara, Kather­ine Whit­tak­er, dis­tin­guished pro­fes­sor and found­ing chair, depart­ment of bio­med­ical engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Davis. For con­tri­bu­tions to the­o­ry and appli­ca­tions of bio­med­ical ultra­son­ics.
  • Fly­tzani-Stephanopou­los, Maria, Robert and Mar­cy Haber Endowed Pro­fes­sor in Ener­gy Sus­tain­abil­i­ty, Tufts Uni­ver­si­ty, Med­ford, Mass. For con­tri­bu­tions to atom­i­cal­ly dis­persed het­ero­ge­neous met­al cat­a­lysts for effi­cient pro­duc­tion of fuels and chem­i­cals.
  • Halas, Nao­mi, Stan­ley C. Moore Pro­fes­sor in Elec­tri­cal and Com­put­er Engi­neer­ing, Rice Uni­ver­si­ty, Hous­ton. For nanoscale engi­neer­ing of opti­cal res­o­nances and line­shapes.
  • Hedrick, J. Karl, James Mar­shall Wells Aca­d­e­m­ic Chair and pro­fes­sor of mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley. For analy­sis and con­trol meth­ods for non­lin­ear sys­tems with appli­ca­tion to prac­ti­cal prob­lems.
  • Hedrick, James Lup­ton, IBM Researcher, IBM Almaden Research Cen­ter, San Jose, Calif. For inno­va­tions in func­tion­al monomers and poly­mers for the micro­elec­tron­ics indus­try.
  • Hopp, Wal­lace J., senior asso­ciate dean for fac­ul­ty and research, Her­rick Pro­fes­sor of Busi­ness, pro­fes­sor of tech­nol­o­gy and oper­a­tions, and pro­fes­sor of indus­tri­al and oper­a­tions engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan, Ann Arbor. For cre­at­ing and apply­ing fun­da­men­tal engi­neer­ing prin­ci­ples gov­ern­ing the under­ly­ing behav­ior of man­u­fac­tur­ing sys­tems and sup­ply chains.
  • Joshi, Chan­drashekhar Janar­dan, Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor of Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing, and direc­tor, Nep­tune Facil­i­ty for Advanced Accel­er­a­tor Research, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les. For con­tri­bu­tions to devel­op­ment of laser- and beam-dri­ven plas­ma accel­er­a­tors.
  • Joup­pi, Nor­man P., dis­tin­guished hard­ware engi­neer, Google Inc., Moun­tain View, Calif. For con­tri­bu­tions to the design of com­put­er mem­o­ry hier­ar­chies.
  • Joyce, David L., pres­i­dent and chief exec­u­tive offi­cer, GE Avi­a­tion, and senior vice pres­i­dent, GE, Cincin­nati. For con­tri­bu­tions in reduc­ing emis­sions and fuel con­sump­tion of tur­bo­fan engines.
  • Kish Jr., Fred­er­ick A., senior vice pres­i­dent, Opti­cal Inte­grat­ed Cir­cuit Group, Infin­era Corp., Sun­ny­vale, Calif. For con­tri­bu­tions to high-bright­ness light-emit­ting diodes.
  • Knatz, Geral­dine, adjunct pro­fes­sor, Viter­bi School of Engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les.
  • Krieger, Roger B., retired group man­ag­er, Gen­er­al Motors Research and Devel­op­ment, Birm­ing­ham, Mich. For con­tri­bu­tions to engine research, advanced engine tech­nolo­gies in pas­sen­ger vehi­cles, and lead­er­ship in engi­neer­ing edu­ca­tion.
  • Luby, Michael, vice pres­i­dent of tech­nol­o­gy, QUALCOMM Inc., Berke­ley, Calif. For con­tri­bu­tions to cod­ing the­o­ry includ­ing the incep­tion of rate­less codes.
  • Michel, R. Kei­th, pres­i­dent, Webb Insti­tute, Glen Cove, N.Y. For con­tri­bu­tions to the design, con­struc­tion, and oper­a­tion of effi­cient, envi­ron­ment-friend­ly ships.
  • Mis­tret­ta, Charles A., John R. Cameron Pro­fes­sor of Med­ical Physics and Radi­ol­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin, Madi­son. For con­tri­bu­tions to devel­op­ment and appli­ca­tion of angio­graph­ic meth­ods in X‑ray and mag­net­ic res­o­nance imag­ing.
  • Moehle, Jack P., T.Y. and Mar­garet Lin Pro­fes­sor of Engi­neer­ing, depart­ment of civ­il and envi­ron­men­tal engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley. For con­tri­bu­tions to earth­quake-resis­tant design and analy­sis of build­ing struc­tures, and for lead­er­ship in engi­neer­ing edu­ca­tion.
  • Mohan, Ned, Oscar A. Schott Pro­fes­sor of Pow­er Elec­tron­ics and Sys­tems, depart­ment of elec­tri­cal and com­put­er engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta, Min­neapo­lis. For con­tri­bu­tions to the inte­gra­tion of elec­tron­ics into pow­er sys­tems and to inno­va­tions in pow­er engi­neer­ing edu­ca­tion.
  • Mullen, Michael Glenn, retired admi­ral, U.S. Navy, Annapo­lis, Md. For apply­ing engi­neer­ing meth­ods in devel­op­ing and exe­cut­ing offen­sive and defen­sive strate­gies for the U.S. Navy.
  • Novosel, Damir, pres­i­dent, Quan­ta Tech­nol­o­gy LLC, Raleigh, N.C. For inno­va­tions and busi­ness lead­er­ship in the secu­ri­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty of elec­tric pow­er grids.
  • Patt, Yale N., pro­fes­sor of elec­tri­cal and com­put­er engi­neer­ing, Ernest Cock­rell Jr. Cen­ten­ni­al Chair in Engi­neer­ing, and uni­ver­si­ty dis­tin­guished teach­ing pro­fes­sor, Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas, Austin. For con­tri­bu­tions to high-per­for­mance micro­proces­sor archi­tec­ture.
  • Paw­likows­ki, Ellen M., com­man­der, Space and Mis­sile Sys­tems Cen­ter, and pro­gram exec­u­tive offi­cer for space, U.S. Air Force, Los Ange­les AFB, Los Ange­les. For lead­er­ship in the devel­op­ment of tech­nolo­gies for nation­al secu­ri­ty pro­grams includ­ing space­craft oper­a­tions and the Air­borne Laser.
  • Pent­land, Alex (Sandy), Toshi­ba Pro­fes­sor of Media, Arts, and Sci­ences; and direc­tor, Human Dynam­ics Lab­o­ra­to­ry and Media Lab Entre­pre­neur­ship Pro­gram, Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, Cam­bridge. For con­tri­bu­tions to com­put­er vision and tech­nolo­gies for mea­sur­ing human social behav­ior.
  • Pharr IV, George M., Chan­cel­lor’s Pro­fes­sor and McK­amey Pro­fes­sor of Engi­neer­ing, depart­ment of mate­ri­als sci­ence and engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Ten­nessee, Knoxville. For devel­op­ment of meth­ods for deter­min­ing mechan­i­cal prop­er­ties of mate­ri­als by nanoin­den­ta­tion.
  • Philip, Craig E., chief exec­u­tive offi­cer, Ingram Barge Co., Nashville, Tenn. For con­tri­bu­tions in infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy and man­age­ment inno­va­tion in the inter­modal, rail, and inland water­way indus­tries.
  • Ram­sey, J. Michael, Min­nie N. Gold­by Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor of Chem­istry, and direc­tor, Cen­ter for Bio­med­ical Microtech­nolo­gies, Uni­ver­si­ty of North Car­oli­na, Chapel Hill. For devel­op­ment of microflu­idic tech­nolo­gies for ana­lyt­i­cal appli­ca­tions.
  • Rex­ford, Jen­nifer, Gor­don Y.S. Wu Pro­fes­sor in Engi­neer­ing, depart­ment of com­put­er sci­ence, Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty, Prince­ton, N.J. For con­tri­bu­tions to the oper­a­tional sta­bil­i­ty of large com­put­er net­works.
  • Riley, James J., PACCAR Pro­fes­sor of Engi­neer­ing, depart­ment of mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, Seat­tle. For con­tri­bu­tions in analy­sis, mod­el­ing, and com­pu­ta­tions of tran­si­tion­ing and tur­bu­lent phe­nom­e­na.
  • Schapire, Robert E., David M. Siegel ’83 Pro­fes­sor, depart­ment of com­put­er sci­ence, Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty, Prince­ton, N.J. For con­tri­bu­tions to machine learn­ing through inven­tion and devel­op­ment of boost­ing algo­rithms.
  • Schutz, Bob E., Joe J. King Chair in Engi­neer­ing and FSX Pro­fes­sor­ship in Space Appli­ca­tions and Explo­ration, Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas, Austin. For con­tri­bu­tion to the use of Satel­lite Laser Rang­ing and Glob­al Posi­tion­ing Sys­tem track­ing to study earth sys­tem dynam­ics.
  • Soled, Stu­art L., dis­tin­guished research asso­ciate, Exxon­Mo­bil Research and Engi­neer­ing Co., Annan­dale, N.J. For dis­cov­ery and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of new mate­ri­als with sig­nif­i­cant envi­ron­men­tal and eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits to soci­ety.
  • Spencer, David Bruce, founder, chair­man, and chief tech­nol­o­gy offi­cer, wTe Corp., Bed­ford, Mass. For inven­tion and entre­pre­neur­ship in mate­ri­als man­u­fac­tur­ing and recy­cling.
  • Stafford, Thomas P., retired, U.S. Air Force; and con­sul­tant, Satel­lite Beach, Fla. For lead­er­ship in the devel­op­ment of ren­dezvous and dock­ing tech­nolo­gies for the Apol­lo and Apollo/Soyuz pro­grams.
  • Ste­dinger, Jery R., pro­fes­sor, School of Civ­il and Envi­ron­men­tal Engi­neer­ing, Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty, Itha­ca, N.Y. For sta­tis­ti­cal meth­ods for flood risk assess­ment and opti­miza­tion­al meth­ods for hydropow­er sys­tem man­age­ment.
  • Tzeghai, Ghe­bre E., glob­al research and devel­op­ment direc­tor, Proc­ter & Gam­ble Co., Mason, Ohio. For con­tri­bu­tions to world health through the devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of den­tal care and per­son­al hygiene prod­ucts.
  • Waitz, Ian A., dean of engi­neer­ing and Jerome C. Hun­sak­er Pro­fes­sor of Aero­nau­tics and Astro­nau­tics, Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, Cam­bridge. For analy­sis of envi­ron­men­tal effects of avi­a­tion enabling prac­ti­cal envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions.
  • Will­son Jr., Alan N., dis­tin­guished pro­fes­sor and Charles P. Reames Chair in Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les. For con­tri­bu­tions to the the­o­ry and appli­ca­tions of dig­i­tal sig­nal pro­cess­ing.
  • Zones, Stacey I., con­sult­ing sci­en­tist, Chevron Ener­gy Tech­nol­o­gy Co., Rich­mond, Calif. For con­tri­bu­tions to mol­e­c­u­lar sieve cat­a­lysts used in com­mer­cial appli­ca­tions.

New Foreign Associates

  • Bim­berg, Dieter, exec­u­tive direc­tor, Cen­ter of NanoPho­ton­ics, Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty Berlin, Berlin, Ger­many. For inno­va­tions in nano­ma­te­ri­als, nanophysics, and nan­ode­vices.
  • Ciminel­li, Vir­ginia S.T., pro­fes­sor, depart­ment of met­al­lur­gi­cal and mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­dade Fed­er­al de Minas Gerais, Belo Hor­i­zonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. For con­tri­bu­tions in envi­ron­men­tal hydromet­al­lur­gy, and for lead­er­ship in nation­al and inter­na­tion­al tech­ni­cal col­lab­o­ra­tions.
  • Fleck, Nor­man Andrew, pro­fes­sor of mechan­ics of mate­ri­als, and direc­tor, Cam­bridge Cen­tre for Micro­me­chan­ics, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge, Cam­bridge, U.K. For exper­i­men­tal and the­o­ret­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions to mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing of solids and struc­tures.
  • Gany, Alon, pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus, Tech­nion — Israel Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, Haifa. For advances in the devel­op­ment of sol­id pro­pel­lants for rock­ets and scram­jets.
  • Harel, David, William Suss­man Pro­fes­sor of Math­e­mat­ics, Weiz­mann Insti­tute of Sci­ence, Rehovot, Israel. For inven­tion of stat­e­charts and con­tri­bu­tions to the log­ic of pro­gram­ming.
  • Mehlhorn, Kurt, direc­tor, Max Planck Insti­tute for Infor­mat­ics, Saar­brueck­en, Ger­many. For con­tri­bu­tions to algo­rithm design and the devel­op­ment of the LEDA soft­ware library.
  • Pou­los, Har­ry G., senior prin­ci­pal, Cof­fey Geot­ech­nics Pty Ltd., Cove West, New South Wales, Aus­tralia. For con­tri­bu­tions to under­stand­ing foun­da­tion struc­ture and ground sup­port inter­ac­tions.
  • Romankiw, Lubomyr T., IBM Fel­low, IBM, York­town Heights, N.Y. For inno­va­tion of thin-film mag­net­ic head struc­tures and elec­tro­chem­i­cal process tech­nolo­gies for micro­elec­tron­ics device fab­ri­ca­tion.
  • Sama­rasek­era, Indi­ra Vas­an­ti, pres­i­dent and vice chan­cel­lor, Uni­ver­si­ty of Alber­ta, Edmon­ton, Cana­da. For mech­a­nis­tic under­stand­ing of steel cast­ing process­es for improved pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.
  • Shoham, Moshe, Tama­ra and Har­ry Han­dels­man Pro­fes­sor, depart­ment of mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing, and head, Robot­ics Lab­o­ra­to­ry, Tech­nion — Israel Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, Haifa. For con­tri­bu­tions to robot­ic tech­nol­o­gy for image-guid­ed surgery.
  • Zhang, Xing­dong, pro­fes­sor and hon­orary direc­tor, Nation­al Engi­neer­ing Research Cen­ter for Bio­ma­te­ri­als, Sichuan Uni­ver­si­ty, Cheng­du, Chi­na. For con­tri­bu­tions to mus­cu­loskele­tal med­ical ther­a­pies and bio­ma­te­r­i­al prod­uct devel­op­ment.

 
Con­tacts:
 
Randy Atkins, Senior Media Rela­tions Offi­cer
(202) 334‑1508
atkins@nae.edu
 
Kim Gar­cia, Mem­ber­ship Elec­tions Man­ag­er
(202) 334‑2195
kgarcia@nae.edu

Dr. Paul Barger is the recipient of the 2014 F.G. Ciapetta Lectureship in Catalysis

Paul_BargerI am pleased to announce that Dr. Paul Barg­er of UOP LLC, a Hon­ey­well Com­pa­ny, is the recip­i­ent of the F.G. Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis, spon­sored by the Grace Cat­a­lysts Tech­nolo­gies oper­at­ing seg­ment of W.R. Grace & Co. and the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The Award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2015 NAM in Pitts­burgh, PA. The recip­i­ent will present lec­tures at most of the affil­i­at­ed Clubs/Societies dur­ing the two-year peri­od cov­ered by this Lec­ture­ship.

The Award is giv­en in recog­ni­tion of sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tions to one or more areas in the field of catal­y­sis with empha­sis on indus­tri­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant cat­a­lysts and cat­alyt­ic process­es and the dis­cov­ery of new cat­alyt­ic reac­tions and sys­tems of poten­tial indus­tri­al impor­tance.

Paul Barg­er has an estab­lished track record of cham­pi­oning new ideas and mov­ing them effec­tive­ly from eval­u­a­tion, to cat­a­lyst devel­op­ment, and to com­mer­cial­iza­tion. Over his thir­ty year career at UOP he has con­tributed to the dis­cov­ery of cat­alyt­ic phe­nom­e­na and devel­op­ment of sev­er­al cat­alyt­ic process­es of indus­tri­al sig­nif­i­cance. He has achieved this by sound tech­ni­cal insight, care­ful exper­i­men­tal design, and flaw­less exe­cu­tion as evi­denced by the award of more than 55 U.S. patents.

Paul is specif­i­cal­ly rec­og­nized with the F.G Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship for his con­tri­bu­tions to the devel­op­ment of the Methanol-to-Olefins (MTO) process from con­cept devel­op­ment to com­mer­cial offer­ing. He was a leader of the joint MTO devel­op­ment effort between UOP and Norsk Hydro. A series of dis­cov­er­ies of SAPO-34 struc­ture-func­tion rela­tion­ships, such as the cor­re­la­tions of prod­uct shape selec­tiv­i­ty, hydride trans­fer and cok­ing with acid site den­si­ty and crys­tal mor­phol­o­gy were keys in the devel­op­ment of this tech­nol­o­gy. The first of four UOP-licensed com­mer­cial units was suc­cess­ful­ly start­ed up in Sep­tem­ber 2013. Paul has also led the devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of two naph­tha reform­ing cat­a­lysts and a sol­id acid deter­gent alky­la­tion cat­a­lyst and cur­rent­ly heads up UOP’s Proof-of-Prin­ci­ple Lab for the eval­u­a­tion of ideas for new tech­nol­o­gy oppor­tu­ni­ties.

I am delight­ed that the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety has cho­sen to rec­og­nize the con­tri­bu­tions of Dr. Paul Barg­er with this lec­ture­ship. I speak with the voice of our grate­ful com­mu­ni­ty in also thank­ing the man­age­ment of W.R. Grace& Co. for its con­tin­u­ing sup­port of this lec­ture­ship.
 
Enrique Igle­sia
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety

Herman Pines Award in Catalysis

Spon­sored by UOP and the Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go
 

Herman Pines

Her­man Pines

The Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go is solic­it­ing nom­i­na­tions for the Her­man Pines Award for out­stand­ing research in the field of catal­y­sis. Her­man Pines was an out­stand­ing research sci­en­tist, and his work rev­o­lu­tion­ized the gen­er­al under­stand­ing of organ­ic chem­istry, par­tic­u­lar­ly the chem­istry of hydro­car­bons inter­act­ing with strong acids. The Award in his hon­or is co-spon­sored by UOP, where Her­man Pines began his indus­tri­al career in 1930 and amassed 145 US patents, and by the Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go of which Her­man Pines was a found­ing mem­ber.

The Award will be pre­sent­ed at the 2014 Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go Spring Sym­po­sium and con­sists of a plaque, a cash award of $1,000 and reim­burse­ment for trav­el and lodg­ing as a ple­nary speak­er at the Spring Sym­po­sium.

The nom­i­nee must meet the fol­low­ing cri­te­ria:

  • Great achieve­ments of catal­y­sis research in the past five years.
  • For the year of 2014, the award will be giv­en to an indus­tri­al researcher.
  • Active mem­ber in catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty.
  • A res­i­dent of North Amer­i­ca.

Dead­line for nom­i­na­tion is Jan­u­ary 31, 2014. Nom­i­na­tion should describe the spe­cif­ic work for which the nom­i­nee should be rec­og­nized. Com­plete cur­ricu­lum vitae with let­ters of sup­port for the nom­i­nee must be includ­ed in the nom­i­na­tion, togeth­er with the descrip­tion of work. Let­ters of nom­i­na­tion and sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion must be sent by Jan­u­ary 31, 2014 as a sin­gle PDF doc­u­ment to:
 
Neng Guo
Pres­i­dent – The Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go (2013–2014)
BP Prod­ucts North Amer­i­ca Inc.
Naperville, IL 60565
neng.guo@bp.com
 
List of past award recip­i­ents of the Her­man Pines Award:

  • 1999 Prof. Harold Kung – North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty
  • 2000 Dr. John Mon­nier – East­man Chem­i­cal Com­pa­ny
  • 2001 Prof. Lan­ny Schmidt – Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta
  • 2002 Dr. James Brazdil – BP
  • 2003 Prof. James Dumesic – Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin
  • 2004 Dr. Alak Bhat­tacharyya – BP
  • 2005 Prof. Israel Wachs – Lehigh Uni­ver­si­ty
  • 2006 Dr. Jeff Miller – BP
  • 2007 Prof. Chun­shan Song – Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty
  • 2008 Dr. Alek­sey Yez­erets – Cum­mins Inc.
  • 2009 Prof. Tobin Marks – North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty
  • 2010 Dr. James Rekoske – UOP
  • 2011 Prof. Jing­guang Chen – Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware
  • 2012 Dr. Stu­art Soled — Exxon­Mo­bil
  • 2013 Prof. W. Nicholas Del­gass – Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty

Charles Campbell is the recipient of the 2013 Robert Burwell Lectureship in Catalysis

Charles_Campbell2We are pleased to announce that Pro­fes­sor Charles Camp­bell of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton is the recip­i­ent of the 2013 Robert Bur­well Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, spon­sored by John­son Matthey and admin­is­tered by The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. It is to be award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd-num­bered years. The award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2015 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. An addi­tion­al $4,500 is avail­able to cov­er trav­el­ing expens­es in North Amer­i­ca. Pro­fes­sor Camp­bell will present lec­tures at the local catal­y­sis clubs and soci­eties dur­ing the two-year peri­od cov­ered by this award.

The Robert Bur­well Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis is giv­en in recog­ni­tion of sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tions to one or more areas in the field of catal­y­sis with empha­sis on dis­cov­ery and under­stand­ing of cat­alyt­ic phe­nom­e­na, cat­alyt­ic reac­tion mech­a­nisms and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and descrip­tion of cat­alyt­ic sites and species.

Pro­fes­sor Camp­bell is being rec­og­nized for bridg­ing the gap between sur­face sci­ence and catal­y­sis, for devel­op­ing new con­cepts and tools in both dis­ci­plines, and for his ser­vice to both com­mu­ni­ties as Edi­tor-in-Chief of Sur­face Sci­ence. His knowl­edge and his con­tri­bu­tions over the last three decades have encom­passed enor­mous depth and breadth. He has made sem­i­nal con­tri­bu­tions in (1) devel­op­ing meth­ods to mea­sure sur­face bond ener­gies, specif­i­cal­ly calorime­try using an appa­ra­tus devel­oped by his research group and which cur­rent­ly ranks as the most sen­si­tive heat detec­tion tool for the study of mod­el cat­a­lysts; (2) accu­rate mea­sure­ments of the bind­ing of met­al atoms and nanopar­ti­cles to oxides, which has led to mech­a­nis­tic approach­es and fun­da­men­tal treat­ments of cat­a­lyst sin­ter­ing; (3) advanc­ing and using micro­ki­net­ic treat­ments of cat­alyt­ic reac­tions, espe­cial­ly by pro­vid­ing many clas­sic exam­ples of how sur­face sci­ence can con­tribute to the under­stand­ing of cat­alyt­ic mech­a­nisms; and (4) for­mal­iz­ing the con­cept of ‘the degree of rate con­trol’ to assess the extent to which indi­vid­ual steps in a cat­alyt­ic sequence lim­it reac­tions rates.
 
Enrique Igle­sia, Pres­i­dent,
 
Bruce Cook, Vice Pres­i­dent
North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety

Daniel Resasco is the recipient of the 2013 Catalysis Club of Philadelphia Award

The Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia is pleased to announce Dr. Daniel Resas­co as the recip­i­ent of the 2013 Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia Award, in recog­ni­tion of his many con­tri­bu­tions relat­ed to sup­port­ed met­al and sol­id acid catal­y­sis, hydro­car­bon con­ver­sion, nan­otube syn­the­sis, and bio­mass-derived com­pound upgrad­ing.

Prof. Resas­co obtained his PhD in chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing from Yale Uni­ver­si­ty in 1983 under the direc­tion of Gary Haller. While at Yale, he co-authored a sem­i­nal work explain­ing strong met­al-sup­port inter­ac­tions on Rh/TiO2 cat­a­lysts that sub­se­quent­ly became a Cur­rent Con­tents Cita­tion Clas­sic. After grad­u­a­tion from Yale, he joined the chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing depart­ment of the Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty of Mar del Pla­ta, Argenti­na, even­tu­al­ly serv­ing as depart­ment chair. In 1991 he returned to the US as Senior Sci­en­tist at the Sun Com­pa­ny, and in 1993 he joined the School of Chem­i­cal, Bio­log­i­cal and Mate­ri­als Engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Okla­homa where he is now the George Lynn Cross Research Pro­fes­sor and Dou­glas & Hil­da Bourne Chair of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing.

Prof. Resasco’s research in het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis has always aimed at impor­tant appli­ca­tions, but has been strong­ly ground­ed in fun­da­men­tals of struc­ture-prop­er­ty rela­tion­ships and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of cat­a­lysts and mech­a­nisms. Ini­tial­ly, his research pro­gram exam­ined strong sol­id acid catal­y­sis and sup­port­ed met­al catal­y­sis for hydro­car­bon pro­cess­ing. In the late 90s, Resasco’s group began inves­ti­ga­tion of het­ero­ge­neous cat­alyt­ic syn­the­sis of sin­gle-wall car­bon nan­otubes, dis­cov­er­ing that care­ful con­trol of the cat­a­lyst nanos­truc­ture enabled unprece­dent­ed chi­ral selec­tiv­i­ty in the nan­otubes.

Their work led to the patent­ed CoMo­Cat process, capa­ble of scale­up to indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion, and a spin­off com­pa­ny, South­West Nan­oTech­nolo­gies. More recent­ly, Resasco’s work on upgrad­ing of bio­mass-derived com­pounds led to the devel­op­ment of Janus nanopar­ti­cle cat­a­lysts which simul­ta­ne­ous­ly sta­bi­lize high inter­fa­cial area emul­sions and car­ry out upgrad­ing reac­tions in both the aque­ous and organ­ic phas­es. This work was ini­tial­ly report­ed in Sci­ence in Jan­u­ary, 2010.

Prof. Resas­co has authored well over 200 archival jour­nal arti­cles which have been cit­ed over 8,000 times, 32 indus­tri­al patents, and over 120 invit­ed lec­tures. From 2001 – 2007 Resas­co also served as asso­ciate edi­tor of the Jour­nal of Catal­y­sis.

Prof. Resas­co will be hon­ored with a plaque an hon­o­rar­i­um ($1000) dur­ing his award pre­sen­ta­tion at the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadelphia’s month­ly meet­ings in the upcom­ing 2013–2014 sea­son.

Seventh World Congress on Oxidation Catalysis

Seventh WCOC

Sev­enth WCOC

The 7th World Con­gress on Oxi­da­tion Catal­y­sis aims to focus on the under­stand­ing of cat­alyt­ic oxi­da­tion phe­nom­e­na across time and length scales, tak­ing togeth­er the fun­da­men­tal phe­nom­e­na that is most often the focus of acad­e­mia with the process­es and appli­ca­tions that dri­ve indus­try. The ses­sion titled From Fun­da­men­tals to Appli­ca­tion includes exist­ing and nascent top­ics that bridge fun­da­men­tal under­stand­ing to cur­rent and emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies. For exam­ple, materials/catalyst prepa­ra­tion and design top­ics address the mul­ti­func­tion­al nature inher­ent in oxi­da­tion process cat­a­lysts. Emerg­ing alter­na­tive or “green” oxi­dants can be used in both het­ero­ge­neous and homo­ge­neous process­es to ben­e­fit selec­tiv­i­ty. Chem­i­cal loop­ing process­es promise to elim­i­nate the pri­ma­ry source of nitro­gen oxides.

A new ses­sion for­mat is includ­ed with the goal of pre­sent­ing new ideas and method­olo­gies for decod­ing the com­plex­i­ty inher­ent in catal­y­sis and cat­alyt­ic process­es. Pre­sen­ters are encour­aged to dis­cuss excit­ing com­bi­na­tions of the­o­ry and exper­i­ment and the com­bi­na­tion of mul­ti­ple exper­i­men­tal tech­niques. Pre­sen­ta­tions will be sched­uled ear­ly in the pro­gram with a dis­cus­sion work­shop to gen­er­ate con­sen­sus on the cur­rent state and direc­tion of the field.

The oxida­tive cat­alyt­ic appli­ca­tions impor­tant to indus­try in a great sense dri­ve the fun­da­men­tal work dis­cussed above. The petro­chem­i­cal process­es focused on syn­gas generation/conversion, com­bus­tion, par­tial and selec­tive oxi­da­tion, amines and C1 chem­istry, along with process­es for bio­mass con­ver­sion to fuels will be pre­sent­ed. Fine chem­i­cal and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal pro­duc­tion that gen­er­al­ly employ homo­ge­neous oxi­da­tions are cov­ered among the subtopics of olefin and aro­mat­ic oxi­da­tion, epox­i­da­tion and the chem­istry of rad­i­cal species. Final­ly, the con­tri­bu­tion of catal­y­sis to envi­ron­men­tal tech­nolo­gies such as VOC oxi­da­tion, waste­water treat­ment and autoex­haust catal­y­sis will be pre­sent­ed.

The Con­gress begins with a full day on Sun­day, June 9th, and lasts through Wednes­day June 12th. It will be held in Saint Louis, Mis­souri on the cam­pus of Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty. With Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty act­ing as host the Con­gress is made quite eco­nom­i­cal and many will find the reg­is­tra­tion prices cou­pled with the avail­abil­i­ty of cam­pus hous­ing a pleas­ant sur­prise. The Con­gress din­ner will be on Tues­day, June 11 and a group excur­sion to the top of the Gate­way Arch will take place on Wednes­day, June 12. For more infor­ma­tion about the 7th World Con­gress, vis­it www.7wcoc.org.