I am pleased to announce that Pro­fes­sor Enrique Igle­sia of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley and Pacif­ic North­west Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry is the recip­i­ent of the 2021 NACS Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis. This award is joint­ly spon­sored by Clari­ant and Exxon­Mo­bil Research and Engi­neer­ing and is admin­is­tered by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize of $5,000. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2021 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM27 in New York City).

The NACS Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis rec­og­nizes an indi­vid­ual who advanced cat­alyt­ic chem­istry or engi­neer­ing by sig­nif­i­cant ser­vice to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty in addi­tion to tech­ni­cal accom­plish­ments.

Ded­i­ca­tion to catal­y­sis through ser­vice and lead­er­ship has been a hall­mark through­out the pro­fes­sion­al career of Enrique Igle­sia, from his Prince­ton stu­dent days as Pres­i­dent of AIChE and Tau Beta Pi local chap­ters, to Sec­tion Head for Catal­y­sis Sci­ence at Exxon, and as the men­tor of a pro­lif­ic group at Berke­ley. Ear­ly on, he served ACS and AIChE in lead­er­ship posi­tions, in which he cham­pi­oned the coa­les­cence of catal­y­sis with­in the Catal­y­sis Sec­re­tari­at (lat­er a Divi­sion) at ACS and the Catal­y­sis and Reac­tion Engi­neer­ing Divi­sion at AIChE. He has served IACS as Pro­gram Co-Chair of the 11th ICC, as Vice-Pres­i­dent and Pres­i­dent-Elect, and as the 17th ICC Meet­ing Chair. He has served NACS as Vice Pres­i­dent and Pres­i­dent and as Meet­ing Co-Chair for its NAM21. In each role, as well as in his tenure as NAE Sec­tion 3 Chair and Search Com­mit­tee Chair, he has focused on broad­en­ing the mem­ber­ship and on encour­ag­ing, men­tor­ing, and rec­og­niz­ing the achieve­ments of young sci­en­tists and engi­neers. Per­haps his most last­ing lega­cy comes from his thir­teen-year tenure as Edi­tor-in-Chief of Jour­nal of Catal­y­sis. Any­one who inter­act­ed with him in that role, and in all oth­ers, knows his pas­sion for excel­lence in the study and prac­tice of catal­y­sis. The award cita­tion reads “For tire­less ded­i­ca­tion to the stew­ard­ship of catal­y­sis and for encour­ag­ing, men­tor­ing, and rec­og­niz­ing its prac­ti­tion­ers”.
 
Jing­guang Chen
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety