Dr. John N. Armor has been select­ed as the recip­i­ent of the 2012 NACS Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis. The Award is pre­sent­ed every two years to rec­og­nize an indi­vid­ual who has advanced cat­alyt­ic chem­istry or engi­neer­ing through both sig­nif­i­cant ser­vice to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty and out­stand­ing tech­ni­cal accom­plish­ments. This award includes an hon­o­rar­i­um ($5,000) and a plaque. It is award­ed by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and spon­sored by Exxon­Mo­bil and Clari­ant and will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the 2013 NAM in Louisville.

This award rec­og­nizes Dr. Armor’s ded­i­ca­tion to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty through his lead­er­ship in the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, the New York Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, and the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety and in the orga­ni­za­tion of inter­na­tion­al sym­posia and con­fer­ences. He has served the North Amer­i­ca Catal­y­sis Soci­ety as Pres­i­dent and Trea­sur­er for more than two decades and dur­ing his tenure strength­ened the finan­cial and tech­ni­cal under­pin­nings of the Soci­ety, the qual­i­ty and rig­or or its meet­ings, and the scope and reach of its edu­ca­tion­al activ­i­ties. He has brought enhanced recog­ni­tion to mem­bers of the Soci­ety and a brighter future to the dis­ci­pline through his artic­u­late advo­ca­cy of catal­y­sis and his lead­er­ship in strength­en­ing the involve­ment of stu­dents and young prac­ti­tion­ers in the activ­i­ties of the Soci­ety.

Dr. Armor has served the com­mu­ni­ty well as a teacher and as a vision­ary leader, while con­tribut­ing as an inde­pen­dent sci­en­tist and a suc­cess­ful men­tor and research man­ag­er in indus­tri­al set­tings. His tech­ni­cal con­tri­bu­tions have been rec­og­nized with the Eugene J. Houdry Award of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and with the E. V. Mur­phree Award of the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety. He has served as Edi­tor of Applied Catal­y­sis and Cat­Tech and has served on the edi­to­r­i­al board of the lead­ing jour­nal in catal­y­sis. He has authored many com­pre­hen­sive reviews of cat­alyt­ic tech­nolo­gies, often with insight­ful his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tives and always with a clear strate­gic vision.