Awards to E. Iglesia, M. Davis, W. Goodman, and I. Wachs

Enrique Igle­sia has received the 2005 George A. Olah Award in Hydro­car­bon Chem­istry from the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety. It will be pre­sent­ed at the 2005 ACS Meet­ing in San Diego in March 2005. The award is giv­en to rec­og­nize, encour­age, and stim­u­late out­stand­ing research achieve­ments in hydro­car­bon or petro­le­um chem­istry. The recip­i­ent must have accom­plished out­stand­ing research in the chem­istry of hydro­car­bons or of petro­le­um and its prod­ucts. Spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tion will be giv­en to the inde­pen­dence of thought and the orig­i­nal­i­ty shown. Enrique Igle­sia has brought togeth­er mech­a­nis­tic insights into sur­face reac­tions with detailed atom­ic-scale char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of inor­gan­ic solids to design advanced mate­ri­als for cat­alyt­ic hydro­car­bon conversions. 

Mark Davis of Cal­tech has receieved the E. V. Mur­phree Award in Indus­tri­al and Engi­neer­ing Chem­istry spon­sored by Exxon­Mo­bil Research and Engi­neer­ing Com­pa­ny and Exxon­Mo­bil Chem­i­cal Com­pa­ny. This award is giv­en to stim­u­late fun­da­men­tal research in indus­tri­al and engi­neer­ing chem­istry, the devel­op­ment of chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing prin­ci­ples and their appli­ca­tion to indus­tri­al processes.

D. Wayne Good­man, Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty will receive the 2005 Gabor A. Somor­jai Award for Cre­ative Research in Catal­y­sis spon­sored by the Gabor A. and Judith K. Somor­jai Endow­ment Fund. The award is to rec­og­nize out­stand­ing the­o­ret­i­cal, exper­i­men­tal, or devel­op­men­tal research result­ing in the advance­ment of under­stand­ing or appli­ca­tion of catalysis.

Israel Wachs of Lehigh Uni­ver­si­ty was one of two sci­en­tists select­ed by the ACS Divi­sion of Col­loid & Sur­face Chem­istry as win­ners of its 2004 Lang­muir Lec­ture Awards. Israel has worked on the sur­face sci­ence of sup­port­ed met­al oxide cat­a­lysts, where an active 2‑D sur­face met­al oxide is dis­persed on an oxide sup­port sub­strate. He spoke on sol­id-vac­u­um or sol­id-gas inter­faces at the recent Philadel­phia ACS meet­ing in August 2004.

Call for Nominations for 2005 Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catalysis

The Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catal­y­sis is spon­sored by Süd-Chemie, Inc. It is admin­is­tered by The Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd num­bered years, and it will be pre­sent­ed at the 2005 Philadel­phia meet­ing of The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NACS). The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize of $3,000. An addi­tion­al $500 is avail­able for oth­er­wise unre­im­bursed trav­el expenses.

The pur­pose of the Award is to rec­og­nize and encour­age indi­vid­ual con­tri­bu­tions in the field of catal­y­sis with empha­sis on the devel­op­ment of new and improved cat­a­lysts and process­es rep­re­sent­ing out­stand­ing advances in their use­ful application.

Selec­tion of the 2005 Houdry Award win­ner will be made by a com­mit­tee of renowned sci­en­tists and engi­neers appoint­ed by the Pres­i­dent of The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. Selec­tion shall be made with­out regard for age, sex, nation­al­i­ty or affil­i­a­tion. Posthu­mous awards will be made only when knowl­edge of the awardee’s death is received after announce­ment of the Award Com­mit­tee’s deci­sion. Nom­i­na­tion pack­ages for the Award must be received by on 1 Octo­ber, 2004 and should con­tain the nom­i­nee’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions, accom­plish­ments, a nom­i­nat­ing let­ter, a sec­ond­ing let­ter and a biog­ra­phy of the nom­i­nee. A crit­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of the sig­nif­i­cance of pub­li­ca­tions and patents should be made as well as a state­ment of the par­tic­u­lar con­tri­bu­tion on which the nom­i­na­tion is based. Nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments should be sub­mit­ted in six copies to the Pres­i­dent of the Soci­ety along with no more than two sec­ond­ing letters.

All nom­i­na­tion pack­ages for the Houdry Award should be addressed to
 
John Armor
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society
1608 Bark­wood Dr.
Ore­field, PA 18069 USA 

Alex Mills passes away

George Alexan­der “Alex” Mills, Age 90 of Hockessin, DE died April 28, 2004 at Chris­tiana Hos­pi­tal in Newark. He was born March 20, 1914 in Saska­toon, Saskatchewan, CN and became a U.S. cit­i­zen in 1942. He was a res­i­dent of Swarth­more, PA for 28 years; Bethes­da, MD for 12 years; and Newark and Hockessin, DE for 20 years.

Dr. Mills was a chemist for over 40 years, mak­ing major con­tri­bu­tions to indus­tri­al cat­alyt­ic process­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly hydro­car­bon fuels and petro­chem­i­cals includ­ing DABCO for polyurethanes. He was exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Cat­alyt­ic Sci­ence & Tech­nol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware until 1984; chief of the Coal Divi­sion Bureau of Mines; direc­tor of the Office of Inter­na­tion­al Coop­er­a­tion Fos­sil Ener­gy at the Depart­ment of Ener­gy in Wash­ing­ton, DC; and direc­tor of research at Houdry Process Cor­po­ra­tion (Air Prod­ucts) in Mar­cus Hook, PA. 

He received the Hen­ry H. Storch Award from the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety; the Pio­neer Award from the Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Chemists; and the E.V. Mur­phree Award in chem­istry from Exxon Mobil Research. He was elect­ed to the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Engi­neer­ing. He was author and co-author of 143 arti­cles in tech­ni­cal pub­li­ca­tions and held 60 U.S. patents. Dr. Mills was pres­i­dent of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety of North Amer­i­ca from 1969–73. He served as chair­man of both, the Fuels Divi­sion, ACS and the Petro­le­um Division,ACS at dif­fer­ent times. He was chair­man of the Philadel­phia Catal­y­sis Club dur­ing the orga­ni­za­tion of the First Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis (Philadel­phia, 1954–56). Final­ly he and his work were great­ly influ­enced by his close coop­er­a­tion with Eugene Houdry. 

He received a BS and an MS from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Saskatchewan and a PhD from Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, where he stud­ied with Nobel Prize win­ner Harold Urey. 

Thanks to The News Jour­nal (Delaware) at http://miva.delawareonline.com/miva/cgi-bin/miva?obits.mv+42481 and to Heinz Heinemann.

Call for Nominations for 2005 Paul H. Emmett Award

The Paul H. Emmett Award in Fun­da­men­tal Catal­y­sis is spon­sored by Davi­son Cat­a­lyst, a busi­ness unit of W. R. Grace & Co. It is admin­is­tered by The Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd num­bered years, and it will be pre­sent­ed at the Philadel­phia meet­ing of The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NACS) in 2005. The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize of $3,000. An addi­tion­al $500 is avail­able for oth­er­wise unre­im­bursed trav­el expenses.

The pur­pose of the Award is to rec­og­nize and encour­age indi­vid­ual con­tri­bu­tions in the field of catal­y­sis with empha­sis on dis­cov­ery and under­stand­ing of cat­alyt­ic phe­nom­e­na, pro­pos­al of cat­alyt­ic reac­tion mech­a­nisms and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of and descrip­tion of cat­alyt­ic sites and species. The award win­ner shall not have passed his/ her 45th birth­day on April 1 of the award year.

Selec­tion of the Award win­ner will be made by a com­mit­tee of renowned sci­en­tists and engi­neers appoint­ed by the Pres­i­dent of The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. Selec­tion shall be made with­out regard for sex, nation­al­i­ty or affil­i­a­tion. Posthu­mous awards will be made only when knowl­edge of the awardee’s death is received after announce­ment of the Award Com­mit­tee’s deci­sion. Nom­i­na­tion pack­ages for the Award must be received by 30 Sep­tem­ber and should con­tain the nom­i­nee’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions, accom­plish­ments, a nom­i­nat­ing let­ter, a sec­ond­ing let­ter and a biog­ra­phy of the nom­i­nee, and con­firm the birth­date of the nom­i­nee. A crit­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of the sig­nif­i­cance of pub­li­ca­tions and patents should be made as well as a state­ment about the par­tic­u­lar con­tri­bu­tion on which the nom­i­na­tion is based. Nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments should be sub­mit­ted in six copies to the Pres­i­dent of the Soci­ety along with no more than two sec­ond­ing let­ters and must be received by on 30 Sep­tem­ber, 2004.

All nom­i­na­tion pack­ages for the Emmett Award should be addressed to:
 
John Armor
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society
1608 Bark­wood Dr.
Ore­field, PA 18069 USA 

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.