Travel Funds for the 13th International Congress on Catalysis

The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety will dis­trib­ute funds from NSF to approx­i­mate­ly 20 U.S. sci­en­tists to attend the 13th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis in Paris, 11–16 July 2004.

Con­gress par­tic­i­pants and younger cat­alyt­ic sci­en­tists will be giv­en pri­or­i­ty. Grantees will be select­ed by a com­mit­tee of cat­alyt­ic sci­en­tists only to com­pen­sate for the low­est avail­able air­fare costs by US car­ri­er.

All U. S. Sci­en­tists work­ing in catal­y­sis are invit­ed to apply for sup­port. A brief vita (two pages) should also be includ­ed along with a state­ment con­cern­ing their needs and par­tic­i­pa­tion in the meet­ing. All requests should be mailed (or email) to :
NSF ICC Trav­el, c/o Bea Ouimette, Dept. Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, Univ. Mass­a­chu­setts, Amherst. MA 01003, or email: put ICC Trav­el in the Sub­ject line. The appli­ca­tions must arrive before 15 May 2004. Include your email address. Selec­tion will be made by 1 June 2004. This will be an “equal oppor­tu­ni­ty” selec­tion inde­pen­dent of the race, col­or, or nation­al ori­gin of the appli­cant. More infor­ma­tion is avail­able at

Details

 
NSF Sup­port for US Par­tic­i­pants at the 13th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis

Introduction

 
The 13th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis will be held in Paris, France on July 11–16, 2004. These meet­ings are held every four years, dat­ing back to their incep­tion in Philadel­phia, PA in 1956. Sub­se­quent meet­ings have been held in Paris, Ams­ter­dam, Moscow, Palm Beach, Lon­don, Tokyo, Berlin, Cal­gary, Bal­ti­more and, most recent­ly, Grana­da, Spain. The atten­dance at these meet­ings has shown a large increase due to a renewed world inter­est in the syn­the­sis of petro­le­um based prod­ucts and spe­cial­ty chem­i­cals, as well as catal­y­sis’ increas­ing role in envi­ron­men­tal con­trols and process effi­cien­cy. It is expect­ed that atten­dance at the 2004 meet­ing will exceed the 1,200, the atten­dance in Bal­ti­more and Grana­da.

This sup­port for US cat­alyt­ic sci­en­tists will include only reim­burse­ment for air­fare between the U.S. and Paris, France by US car­ri­ers.

Selection Process

 
If a trav­el grant is award­ed, the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety will adver­tise the award, includ­ing appli­ca­tion pro­ce­dures in the Newslet­ter of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, Chem­i­cal and Engi­neer­ing News, and on the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety’s Web site (http://www.nacatsoc.org). Announce­ments will be sent to all aca­d­e­m­ic per­sons whose names may not be on the mem­ber­ship list but of whom we are aware. The names of such per­sons are avail­able from atten­dees at recent North Amer­i­can meet­ings. Every effort will be made to ensure par­tic­i­pa­tion by women and minor­i­ty groups. The announce­ment will spec­i­fy that U.S. flag car­ri­ers must be used.

To avoid con­flict of inter­ests, grantees will be select­ed by a com­mit­tee con­sist­ing indus­tri­al researchers in catal­y­sis. These three peo­ple are well informed of uni­ver­si­ty activ­i­ties in catal­y­sis. The grant will be admin­is­tered by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mass­a­chu­setts under the super­vi­sion of Prof. William Cur­tis Con­ner, For­eign Sec­re­tary of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety.

The Com­mit­tee will be expect­ed to give (a) first pri­or­i­ty to per­sons who have been invit­ed to present papers and, (b) sec­ond pri­or­i­ty to those who have had papers accept­ed for pre­sen­ta­tion at the Con­gress, and © third pri­or­i­ty to those not qual­i­fy­ing above, but who have a spe­cial func­tion, e.g., those who have been select­ed to chair ses­sions. Pri­or­i­ty will also be giv­en to requests by promis­ing younger work­ers who are not yet well estab­lished. The Com­mit­tee will give con­sid­er­a­tion to pro­fes­sion­al accom­plish­ments or the poten­tial of each appli­cant and attempt to give due atten­tion to a rea­son­able age and geo­graph­ic dis­tri­b­u­tion.
The Com­mit­tee will dis­crim­i­nate against no one on the grounds of race, col­or, or nation­al ori­gin.

The International Congress on Catalysis

 
The orga­ni­za­tion that over­sees these meet­ings is the Coun­cil of the Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis. There are present­ly over 25 sig­na­ture coun­tries with­in this orga­ni­za­tion and this num­ber is on the increase. Coun­tries in South and North Amer­i­ca, West­ern and East­ern Europe, Asia and the Pacif­ic Basin are each rep­re­sent­ed. The Unit­ed States is cur­rent­ly rep­re­sent­ed in the Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress through two per­ma­nent rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

The scope of the 13th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress will be focused on the top­ic of “Catal­y­sis and 21st Cen­tu­ry Chal­lenges – Basic Sci­ence and the Needs of Soci­ety”. See the link http://www.13icc.jussieu.fr

ORCS announces 3 awards in catalysis

At their 20th ORCS meet­ing in Hilton Head, South Car­oli­na, the Organ­ic Reac­tions Catal­y­sis Soci­ety pre­sent­ed the fol­low­ing awards:

2003 Paul N. Rylan­der Award was pre­sent­ed to Don­na G. Black­mond of Impe­r­i­al Col­lege, Lon­don, in part for her kinet­ic analy­sis and mod­el­ing of cat­alyt­ic and asym­met­ric cat­alyt­ic reac­tions.

2004 Paul N. Rylan­der Award was pre­sent­ed to Richard C. Larock of Iowa State Uni­veristy, Ames, Iowa, as a pio­neer in the use of pal­la­di­um in organ­ic syn­the­sis, includ­ing the dis­cov­ery of a range of new method­olo­gies involv­ing aryl, allylic, and vinylic pal­la­di­um inter­me­di­ates used to syn­the­size a broad range of organ­ic com­pounds.

2004 Mur­ray Raney Award to Jean Lessard of the Uni­ver­siy of Sher­brooke, Que­bec, Cana­da for his pio­neer­ing efforts in elec­tro­cat­alyt­ic elec­trodes, espe­cial­ly for a more durable and struc­tural­ly sta­ble Raney-type elec­trode.

Enrique Iglesia selected for 2004 Award for Excellence in Natural Gas Conversion

Pro­fes­sor Enrique Igle­sia (Univ. of Calif., Berke­ley) has been cho­sen as the recip­i­ent of the 2004 Award for Excel­lence in Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion. This is a pres­ti­gious award for sci­en­tif­ic and tech­no­log­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions in this research area. It is award­ed every three years dur­ing the Inter­na­tion­al Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion Sym­po­sium to rec­og­nize endur­ing and sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy for con­ver­sion of nat­ur­al gas to valu­able prod­ucts. Pre­vi­ous award recip­i­ents are Jack Lunsford, Jens Ros­trup-Nielsen and Lan­ny Schmidt.

The award con­sists of a plaque and a mon­e­tary prize, which will pre­sent­ed at the 7th Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion Sym­po­sium to be held in Dalian, Chi­na (June 6–10, 2004). Enrique will give the award ple­nary lec­ture dur­ing this meet­ing. The selec­tion com­mit­tee con­sists of pre­vi­ous awardees and con­sid­ers open nom­i­na­tions from a broad cross-sec­tion of aca­d­e­m­ic and indus­tri­al mem­bers of the gas con­ver­sion com­mu­ni­ty in con­sul­ta­tion with all mem­bers of the Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion Inter­na­tion­al Sci­en­tif­ic Board.

2005 Bower Award will be for catalysis

The Bow­er Award and Prize for Achieve­ment in Sci­ence was first pre­sent­ed in 1991. It rec­og­nizes out­stand­ing achieve­ment in life, phys­i­cal, and applied sci­ences; inno­va­tion in the sci­ences; and train­ing of sci­en­tists. The award is giv­en with­out regard for nation­al­i­ty and includes a gold medal and prize of $250,000.
 
2005 Bow­er Awards Focus — Catal­y­sis
2005 THEMe — Chem­istry — the field of catal­y­sis
 
Eli­gi­ble con­tri­bu­tions include, but are not lim­it­ed to the areas of: Oxi­da­tion catal­y­sis, Hydro­gena­tion catal­y­sis, Hydro­car­bon con­ver­sions (i.e. crack­ing, reform­ing, alky­la­tion), Enan­tios­e­lec­tiv­i­ty, Shape selec­tive catal­y­sis, Olefin poly­mer­iza­tion and oligomer­iza­tion, Olefin Addi­tions, Zeo­lites, Metathe­sis, Catal­y­sis using car­bon monox­ide and car­bon diox­ide, Auto emis­sion and indus­tri­al plant emis­sion cat­a­lysts, Halo­car­bon Catal­y­sis, Fuel Cell Catal­y­sis, Sur­face Stud­ies of Cat­alyt­ic mate­ri­als, New Cat­alyt­ic Mate­ri­als

Eligibility

 
This is an inter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion for indi­vid­u­als whose work has had a sig­nif­i­cant impact on the field of catal­y­sis. In cas­es of equal sci­en­tif­ic mer­it, the fac­tor of cur­rent eco­nom­ic val­ue of the dis­cov­ery or appli­ca­tion will weigh favor­ably on behalf of the can­di­date (Bow­er Will, 1986). Can­di­dates for the Award must be liv­ing per­sons, and the win­ner must par­tic­i­pate in the April 2005 Awards Cer­e­mo­ny. This award is for an indi­vid­ual rather than for a group.

Selection Process

 
Nom­i­na­tions from the world sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty and from the Award’s Board of Advi­sors will be screened by a spe­cial pan­el from The Franklin Insti­tute’s Com­mit­tee on Sci­ence and the Arts and by exter­nal ref­er­ees as appro­pri­ate.
A care­ful­ly eval­u­at­ed selec­tion of nom­i­na­tions will be pre­sent­ed to the Bow­er Inter­na­tion­al Selec­tion Com­mit­tee, a pan­el of lead­ing sci­en­tists in the cho­sen field, which will rec­om­mend the pro­posed Award recip­i­ent. The nom­i­na­tion of the pro­posed final­ist is brought before the Board of Trustees of The Franklin Insti­tute for final approval

For more infor­ma­tion see www.fi.edu/tfi/exhibits/bower/04/SCIeligible.html.

An email of intent to nom­i­nate would be appre­ci­at­ed by March 31, 2004. E‑mail to awards@fi.edu. Sub­mit com­plete nom­i­na­tion pack­age by May 31, 2004 (see www.fi.edu/tfi/exhibits/bower/04/SCInominate.html).

Postdoctoral Convocation

The 2nd Con­vo­ca­tion on Enhanc­ing the Post­doc­tor­al Expe­ri­ence for Sci­en­tists and Engi­neers will be held April 15, 2004 in Wash­ing­ton D.C. For more infor­ma­tion or to reg­is­ter for this event, please vis­it the announce­ment web­site at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/postdoc/. There is NO FEE to attend.

The goal of this 2nd Con­vo­ca­tion is to eval­u­ate the impact of the COSEPUP guide, “Enhanc­ing the Post­doc­tor­al Expe­ri­ence for Sci­en­tists and Engi­neers (2000). This guide was draft­ed to inform post­docs, super­vi­sors„ insti­tu­tions, and fund­ing agen­cies of their oppor­tu­ni­ties, rights, and respon­si­bil­i­ties; in addi­tion, the guide seeks to facil­i­tate dis­cus­sion among these par­ties.
 
The Nation­al Acad­e­mies of Sci­ence
Tanya Mazur
500 5th Street, NW, Keck WS510, Wash­ing­ton, DC 20001
Phone: 202–334-1735
Email: tmazur@nas.edu

Professor Douglas Stephan- 2004 Ciapetta Lecturer

The 2004 F. G. Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship is award­ed to Pro­fes­sor Dou­glas Stephan of the Depart­ment of Chem­istry & Bio­chem­istry, Uni­ver­si­ty of Wind­sor, Wind­sor, Ontario, Cana­da. The F.G. Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis is cospon­sored by Davi­son Cat­a­lyst, a busi­ness unit of W. R. Grace & Co and The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. 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. The Award con­sists of a plaque, an hon­o­rar­i­um and addi­tion­al mon­ey is avail­able to cov­er trav­el­ing expens­es to vis­it the local clubs. Local clubs should con­tact Pro­fes­sor Stephan direct­ly to make trav­el arrange­ments.

Pro­fes­sor Stephan received his Ph.D. in Inor­gan­ic Chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of West­ern Ontario. He under­took a NATO Post­doc­tor­al Fel­low in Chem­istry at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty before mov­ing to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wind­sor where he has spent his career doing research. Doug Stephan’s research group has been active for over 20 years in study­ing the fun­da­men­tal organometal­lic chem­istry of ear­ly tran­si­tion met­als. He has received many dis­tinc­tions and hon­ors for his accu­mu­lat­ed accom­plish­ments dur­ing the course of his stud­ies, but it was his recent suc­cess in devel­op­ing a nov­el set of cat­a­lysts for poly­mer­iz­ing eth­yl­ene that have earned Doug Stephan many acco­lades both in indus­tri­al cir­cles and among his aca­d­e­m­ic peers. This devel­op­ment is expect­ed to have a major impact on the Cana­di­an petro­chem­i­cals indus­try, which is a sig­nif­i­cant part of the man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ty in this coun­try. Stephan’s inno­v­a­tive approach to ancil­lary lig­and design quick­ly led to dra­mat­ic find­ings of new patentable cat­a­lysts that were high­ly active under indus­tri­al con­di­tions. NOVA Chem­i­cals’ goal of devel­op­ing new sin­gle site cat­a­lyst tech­nolo­gies was sig­nif­i­cant­ly advanced with the dis­cov­er­ies of poten­tial new cat­a­lyst com­pounds from the Stephan labs. In col­lab­o­ra­tion with a team of chemists and engi­neers at NOVA Chem­i­cals Stephan’s team worked to explore and devel­op these new cat­a­lyst fam­i­lies towards com­mer­cial­iza­tion. Stephan and his group have con­tin­ued to study the struc­ture-reac­tiv­i­ty rela­tion­ship of these sin­gle-site cat­a­lysts. In addi­tion, Stephan’s group has dis­cov­ered and stud­ied a num­ber of unusu­al deac­ti­va­tion path­ways that these new cat­a­lysts exhib­it allow­ing opti­miza­tion of process con­di­tions. More recent­ly, Stephan’s group has been study­ing mod­i­fied sys­tems that exhib­it liv­ing cat­a­lyst behav­ior and their use in the for­ma­tion of co- and block poly­mers. His new efforts are focused on devel­op­ing new co-cat­a­lysts as well as strate­gies to late tran­si­tion met­al cat­a­lysts.

Ciapetta Lectureship in Catalysis Award for 2004

Nom­i­na­tions are now being accept­ed for the next Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship award giv­en by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The award is described below.

The F.G. Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis is cospon­sored by Davi­son Cat­a­lyst, a busi­ness unit of W. R. Grace & Co and The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The Soci­ety admin­is­ters this Lec­ture­ship. It is to be award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in even num­bered years. The Award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000. An addi­tion­al $4,500 is avail­able to cov­er trav­el­ing expens­es. The hon­o­rar­i­um is pro­vid­ed com­plete­ly by Davi­son.

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. The awardee will be select­ed on the basis of his/her con­tri­bu­tions to the cat­alyt­ic lit­er­a­ture and the cur­rent time­li­ness of these research con­tri­bu­tions. The recip­i­ent may be invit­ed to (1) vis­it and lec­ture to each of the affil­i­at­ed Clubs/Societies with which mutu­al­ly sat­is­fac­to­ry arrange­ments can be made and (2) pre­pare a review paper(s) for pub­li­ca­tion cov­er­ing these lec­tures. Pub­li­ca­tion will be in an appro­pri­ate peri­od­i­cal.

Nom­i­na­tions should be sub­mit­ted before 30 Novem­ber 2003 to:
 
John N. Armor
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety
1608 Bark­wood Dr.
Ore­field, PA 18069 USA
armorjn@apci.com or cbarmor@enter.net
610–481-5792
FAX: 610–481-7719 (non-con­fi­den­tial fax line)
 
Assis­tant: Teri Hoppe
E‑mail hoppetr@apci.com
610–481-4789
 
The nom­i­na­tion should include a cov­er let­ter by the nom­i­na­tor detail­ing the qual­i­fi­ca­tions of the nom­i­nee. At least 1–2 sec­ond­ing let­ters are help­ful. A copy of the resume of the nom­i­nee should be includ­ed and any oth­er rel­e­vant mate­r­i­al to sup­port the nom­i­na­tion. Selec­tion will be made in Decem­ber 2003-Jan­u­ary 2004.

Obituary for Ipatieff Professor Robert L. Burwell

Robert L. Bur­well, Jr., Ipati­eff Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus of Chem­istry at North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty, will always be remem­bered by his many friends, col­leagues, and stu­dents as a learned gen­tle­man of high moral stan­dard, a ded­i­cat­ed edu­ca­tor, and a thor­ough and bril­liant researcher in het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis. He was a lead­ing fig­ure in guid­ing the devel­op­ment of the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty in the U.S. and the world. His many con­tri­bu­tions to the com­mu­ni­ty includ­ed serv­ing on the gov­ern­ing body of the (North Amer­i­can) Catal­y­sis Soci­ety from 1964 to 1977 as Direc­tor, Vice Pres­i­dent, and in 1973–77, Pres­i­dent. From 1955–84, he served on the Board of Direc­tor, as U.S Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Con­gress, Vice Pres­i­dent, and Pres­i­dent (1980–84) of the Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis. He chaired the Gor­don Research Con­fer­ence on Catal­y­sis in 1957, and was Asso­ciate Edi­tor and a mem­ber of the Edi­to­r­i­al Board of Jour­nal of Catal­y­sis.

Robert Bur­well received his Ph.D. in 1936 from Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty under the guid­ance of Sir Hugh Tay­lor. After three years as a Chem­istry Instruc­tor at Trin­i­ty Col­lege, in 1939 he joined the Chem­istry Depart­ment at North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty. Except for the World War II peri­od from 1942 until 1945, when, hav­ing enlist­ed, he worked at the Naval Research Lab­o­ra­to­ry, Dr. Bur­well served at North­west­ern until he retired in 1980. As Ipati­eff Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus, he con­tin­ued his research and intel­lec­tu­al activ­i­ties for anoth­er decade after retire­ment. Dur­ing his career he pub­lished over 170 orig­i­nal research arti­cles, served on Nation­al Research Coun­cil Com­mit­tees, IUPAC Com­mit­tees, the Petro­le­um Research Fund Advi­so­ry Board, the Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion Chem­istry Advi­so­ry Board, and oth­ers, as well as Chair­ing the Chem­istry Depart­ment at North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty. In 1994, he moved to Vir­ginia with Elise, his wife of over six­ty years.

Pro­fes­sor Bur­well was among the first sci­en­tists who under­stood the crit­i­cal con­nec­tion between gen­er­al chem­istry and catal­y­sis. He intro­duced and pop­u­lar­ized con­cepts that are now famil­iar to and even com­mon­place with­in the entire catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty. His research themes cen­tered around elu­ci­da­tion of the reac­tion mech­a­nisms, nature of sur­face inter­me­di­ates, and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of active sites of sol­id cat­a­lysts. He was well known for the use of H‑D exchange for such stud­ies. Using this tech­nique, he iden­ti­fied the impor­tance of 1,2‑diadsorbed alka­ne on noble met­al sur­faces in the exchange and the hydro­gena­tion reac­tion, and the irre­versibil­i­ty in the adsorp­tion of alkene dur­ing hydro­gena­tion. He estab­lished the “rollover” mech­a­nism for cyclic hydro­car­bons in these reac­tions, and the term “sur­face organometal­lic zoo”. He care­ful­ly doc­u­ment­ed the impor­tance of sur­face coor­di­na­tion unsat­u­ra­tion in catal­y­sis by met­al oxides, and devel­oped new cat­a­lysts of unusu­al activ­i­ties by depo­si­tion of organometal­lic com­plex­es on alu­mi­na and sil­i­ca, and by mod­i­fy­ing sil­i­ca sur­face.

His many sci­en­tif­ic con­tri­bu­tions and their indus­tri­al appli­ca­tions were rec­og­nized in his day, as evi­denced by the many awards and hon­ors he received. They includ­ed the ACS Kendall Award in Col­loid and Sur­face Chem­istry, the Lubri­zol Award in Petro­le­um Chem­istry, and the Hum­boldt Senior Sci­en­tist Award. In addi­tion, the Robert L. Bur­well Lec­ture­ship Award of the (North Amer­i­can) Catal­y­sis Soci­ety was estab­lished in recog­ni­tion of his out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the field of catal­y­sis. Pro­fes­sor Bur­well was also known for the first short course in het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis that he taught for sev­er­al years togeth­er with Michel Boudart.

To those who knew him per­son­al­ly, Bur­well was not only an impos­ing intel­lect, but a warm, deeply car­ing, pleas­ant per­son, a com­pli­cat­ed per­son with many facets. For instance, while wise and judi­cious, he nev­er­the­less con­duct­ed him­self with a great sense of humor and wit. Any who he favored soon real­ized he could engage in live­ly con­ver­sa­tion on prac­ti­cal­ly any sub­ject. Many of his cowork­ers also remem­bered him for his numer­ous per­cep­tive sci­en­tif­ic advice and sug­ges­tions. Very often in sem­i­nars, stu­dents felt that they learned more about a sub­ject from his prob­ing ques­tions than the actu­al sem­i­nar itself. His fam­i­ly remem­bered him also as a care­tak­er extra­or­di­naire. His devo­tion to his wife, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the last year of her life, will be remem­bered by all.

Dr. Bur­well was a walk­ing encyclopedia—indeed he was sci­en­tif­ic con­sul­tant to the World Book Ency­clo­pe­dia. He read exten­sive­ly on vir­tu­al­ly every sub­ject. He par­tic­u­lar­ly enjoyed a com­mand­ing knowl­edge of the birds, flo­ra and fau­na and could be seen bird watch­ing in the snowy ear­ly springs in Evanston. He enjoyed cul­tur­al mat­ters and shar­ing of his knowl­edge with his col­leagues, friends, and post-doc­tor­al and grad­u­ate stu­dents, a trait he con­tin­ued even after he retired to Vir­ginia with his wife, where he became an active mem­ber of many local Vir­ginia muse­ums and a vari­ety of genealog­i­cal soci­eties (and a founder of the Com­put­er Club and Wine Club at the retire­ment com­mu­ni­ty). He was often expect­ed to be the cul­tur­al guide for his group of friends on tours around the world. He par­tic­u­lar­ly enjoyed teach­ing Amer­i­can cul­ture and the nuances of the Eng­lish lan­guage to his inter­na­tion­al post-doc­tor­al and grad­u­ate stu­dents. Dr. Bur­well loved to refer to the 4th of July as “the day we cel­e­brate Eng­lish becom­ing a for­eign lan­guage”. He also pos­sessed a cul­ti­vat­ed taste for wine, and was proud of his col­lec­tion of antique porce­lain.

Per­haps the most appro­pri­ate ref­er­ence to Robert Bur­well was from Marie West­brook, the Depart­ment Sec­re­tary of Chem­istry at North­west­ern, who referred to him always as “Mr. Bur­well”, not as “Doc­tor” or “Pro­fes­sor”. When asked why, she replied: “A lot of peo­ple can become a Pro­fes­sor or a Doc­tor, and I use Mis­ter just for him”. On May 15, Mr. Bur­well passed away at the age of 91. He was buried on June 28th, 2003 in Christ Epis­co­pal Church in West Riv­er, Mary­land next to his beloved wife, Elise.

Pre­pared by Harold H. Kung, with con­tri­bu­tions from Kath­leen Tay­lor, Gary Haller, Pol­ly Bur­well Haynes, and Lou Allred.

IAES newsletter

The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety is a mem­ber of the IACS: Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of the Catal­y­sis soci­eties. A copy of their recent newslet­ter will be post­ed in the Newslet­ters fold­er on the NACS home­page.

The Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis, Inc., a cor­po­ra­tion of Penn­syl­va­nia, U.S.A., orga­nized the first Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress in Philadel­phia in 1956 and par­tic­i­pat­ed in the plan­ning of sub­se­quent con­gress­es in Paris in 1960 and Ams­ter­dam in 1964, with the objec­tive of fur­ther­ing the sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy of catal­y­sis. In view of the con­tin­u­ing and grow­ing inter­est in catal­y­sis, it was agreed to estab­lish an inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion orig­i­nal­ly called Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis, but its name has been changed in 1996 to Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties, IACS.

At reg­u­lar meet­ings of the IACS Coun­cil, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the par­tic­i­pat­ing catal­y­sis soci­eties par­tic­i­pate in infor­ma­tive dia­logue and dis­cuss details relat­ed to the next Inter­na­tion­al Catal­y­sis Meet­ing (every 4 years). The NACS’ cur­rent rep­re­sen­ta­tives to these meet­ings is W. Curt Con­ner (For­eign Sec­re­tary) and John Armor (Pres­i­dent). If you have any mat­ters need­ing IACS atten­tion you should bring it up with one of these two per­sons. In addi­tion our for­mer For­eign Sec­re­tary, Alex Bell, serves as the cur­rent Vice-Pres­i­dent of the IACS.

In Memoriam: Paul Grange (1943–2003)

Paul Grange was born in Lyon dur­ing the war. He grad­u­at­ed from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lyon, which, in 1970 grant­ed him a PhD, for a work done at the Insti­tut de Recherche sur la Catal­yse, in Villeur­banne-Lyon. This was lat­er fol­lowed by a post-doc­tor­al posi­tion in the Lab­o­ra­to­ry of Catal­y­sis and Sol­id State Chem­istry in the then new­ly split Lou­vain Uni­ver­si­ty. In the course of years, the sci­en­tif­ic activ­i­ty of Pro­fes­sor Grange pro­gres­sive­ly shift­ed away from sol­id state chem­istry, his ini­tial inter­est dur­ing his PhD. Lat­er his results in the syn­the­sis of high tran­si­tion tem­per­a­ture super­con­duc­tors and out­stand­ing suc­cess with high­ly dis­persed nitrides, oxyni­trides and the very orig­i­nal syn­the­sis of more com­pli­cat­ed com­pounds schemat­i­cal­ly rep­re­sent­ed by AlPON – ZrPON – AlGaPON – VAl­ON, made this back­ground cru­cial. In the course of 31 years, he changed posi­tion no less than sev­en times. In spite of that, or because of that, he could man­age to have some sort of a “sab­bat­i­cal leave”, in 1983–1984, at INTEVEP in Cara­cas, a stay rich in fruit­ful teach­ings. The last change was in 1996, on his pro­mo­tion to Full Pro­fes­sor (“Pro­fesseur Ordi­naire”). From that time on, the remark­able dynamism of Pro­fes­sor Grange led him to com­bine fun­da­men­tal research on select­ed advanced sub­jects of catal­y­sis (espe­cial­ly oxyni­trides, basic catal­y­sis) with more appli­ca­tion-ori­ent­ed devel­op­ments. In most cas­es the work was direct­ly relat­ed to spe­cif­ic prob­lems of indus­try, but nev­er­the­less per­mit­ted the com­ple­tion of 29 PhD the­ses and 43 grad­u­ate research pro­grams, and the pub­li­ca­tion of 418 arti­cles. Paul Grange engaged in an impres­sive devel­op­ment of activ­i­ties, ini­ti­at­ing co-oper­a­tive pro­grams in Bel­gium and with for­eign uni­ver­si­ties (Bucharest, Tunis, Caen, Argenti­na), and cre­at­ing one of the activ­i­ty branch­es of CERTECH, a uni­ver­si­ty sub­sidiary for applied research. In UCL, he became mem­ber of var­i­ous com­mit­tees, was select­ed as mem­ber of the Research Advi­so­ry Coun­cil of the uni­ver­si­ty, where he was elect­ed Chair­man of the Depart­ment of Applied Chem­istry and Bio-Indus­tries a few days before his death. In less than sev­en years Paul Grange was able to ful­ly devel­op his broad capac­i­ties. He cer­tain­ly felt that as a deserved com­pen­sa­tion after many years of uncer­tain­ties. But the price was wor­ries and work over­load, with that ter­ri­ble end in July.
 
Writ­ten by B. Del­mon (orig­i­nal text has been abre­vi­at­ed)