I am pleased to announce that Professor Jingguang Chen of Columbia University is the recipient of the 2017 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 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 2017 North American Meeting of the Catalysis Society. An additional $4,500 is available to cover travelling expenses in North America.
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Election Results for Director-at-Large
The electronic election for six Director-at-Large positions is now complete.
I am pleased to announce that the following individuals have been elected to a four-year term as Director-at-Large from a slate of 13 candidates:
• Jingguang Chen (Columbia University)
• Jim Dumesic (University of Wisconsin)
• Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos (Tufts University)
• Bruce C. Gates (University of California at Davis)
• Chris Jones (Georgia Institute of Technology)
• Fabio H. Ribeiro (Purdue University)
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Director-at-Large Elections
The election for Directors-at-Large is scheduled to start on March 8th, 2017 at 21:01 AM. The NACS will be using online balloting as the only way to cast your vote. We have contracted with a firm that is experienced in on-line voting to ensure the accuracy and confidentiality of the process.
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Announcement of the Tanabe Prize
The Acid Base Catalysis Group hereby invites nominations for the Kozo Tanabe Prize. The Kozo Tanabe Prize for Acid Base Catalysis is sponsored by the International Acid-Base Catalysis (ABC) Group* and a selected private company. It honors the legacy and accomplishments of Professor Kozo Tanabe, who pioneered many of the modern concepts in Catalytic Chemistry of acids and bases. The prize is administered by the ABC Group* and will be presented at the 8th International Symposium on Acid-Base Catalysis (ABC‑8), to be held in May 2017 in Rio, Brazil. The award consists of a plaque, an honorarium, and travel expenses to attend the meeting and present a plenary lecture. The Tanabe Prize recognizes substantial contributions to the field of acid and/or base catalysis. It may be presented to an individual of any stage of her/his career for significant contributions to the area within the ten years preceding the date of the award. Self nominations are not accepted. The nomination package must include the nomination sheet, a list of publications and patents (2007–2017), a list of plenary and keynote lectures, a curriculum vitae and two letters of recommendation. The nomination packages should be sent via email as a single PDF file titled “Name of Nominee Tanabe Prize Nomination 2017” no later than March 17, 2017 to the Tanabe Prize committee**. (Coordinator: David Jackson, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom, Email: david.jackson@glasgow.ac.uk).
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ABC Young Scientist Award
The Acid Base Catalysis Group invites nominations for the ABC Young Scientist Award. The award will be given to a single person who has made novel and promising contributions to the field of acid and/or base catalysis and is less than 45 years old on May 7, 2017. The awardee will be invited to present a lecture at the 8th International Symposium on Acid-Base Catalysis in Rio 2017.
Nomination packages should include a nomination letter, a one-page CV, a one-page research highlight, a list of publications, two letters of recommendation, and up to three electronic reprints of relevant publications. Self-nomination is excluded. The package should consist of a single PDF file and should be submitted per email no later than March 17, 2017. Inquiries and nomination packages should be directed to the President of the Acid Base Catalysis Group, Takashi Tatsumi, National Institute of Technology and Evaluation, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan.
Email: tatsumi-takashi@nite.go.jp; ttatsumi@cat.res.titech.ac.jp
Bruce Gates is the recipient of the 2017 Michel Boudart Award for Advances in Catalysis
We are pleased to announce that Professor Bruce Gates of the University of California at Davis is the recipient of the 2017 Michel Boudart Award for Advances in Catalysis. This award is sponsored by the Haldor Topsøe Company and is administered jointly by the North American Catalysis Society and the European Federation of Catalysis Societies. The presentation to Professor Gates will be made at both the 25th North American Meeting of the Catalysis Society (Denver, June 2017) and the Europacat XIII Meeting (Florence, Italy, August 2017).
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Proposal to host the 17th ICC by the North American Catalysis Society
60 Year ICC Anniversary: Historical Figures of Catalysis
In Memoriam: Wolfgang Sachtler (1924–2017)
The catalysis community mourns the loss of one of its formative and most influential figures, Professor Dr. Wolfgang Max Hugo Sachtler, who passed away on January 8, 2017. Born on November 8, 1924 in Delitzsch, Germany, Professor Sachtler received his PhD from the Technical University Braunschweig (Brunswick), Germany in 1952, in the area of surface science. Upon graduation, he joined the Royal Dutch Shell Laboratory in Amsterdam where he stayed until retirement as Director of Fundamental Research in 1983. From 1963–84, he held a joint appointment as Professor at the National University in Leiden. He was particularly known for his insightful application of surface science concepts to catalysis. While at Shell and Leiden, he advanced the concept of relationship between metal-oxygen bond energy and the selectivity for partial oxidation products in hydrocarbon oxidations, initiated insightful discussions on whether molecular or atomic oxygen is necessary for selective epoxidation of ethylene, applied thermodynamics and experimental measurements to metal alloys to account for the effects of the surface compositions of alloys to their binding of adsorbates, and promoted the description of bimetallic catalysis in terms of ensemble and ligand effects.
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Nominations are open for the Herman Pines Award in Catalysis
Sponsored by UOP and the Catalysis Club of Chicago

Herman Pines
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.
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