Pro­fes­sor W. Nicholas Del­gass (Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty) is the recip­i­ent of the inau­gur­al NACS Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis. This Award will be 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. The award includes an hon­o­rar­i­um ($5,000) and a plaque. The lat­ter will be pre­sent­ed at the clos­ing ban­quet dur­ing the 2011 NAM in Detroit.

The career of Pro­fes­sor Del­gass, over its four decades, exem­pli­fies this com­bi­na­tion of pio­neer­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the sci­ence of catal­y­sis, ded­i­ca­tion and rig­or in the edu­ca­tion of sci­en­tists and engi­neers, and ser­vice to oth­ers in the advance­ment of catal­y­sis. His research achieve­ments include the syn­the­sis of nov­el cat­alyt­ic mate­ri­als, the devel­op­ment of mod­ern spec­tro­scop­ic meth­ods for cat­a­lyst char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, and the use of rig­or­ous kinet­ic and spec­tro­scop­ic meth­ods to elu­ci­date the mech­a­nism of com­plex cat­alyt­ic reac­tions on solids. He is lead­ing a team that is devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing mod­el-based approach­es for the design and effi­cient opti­miza­tion of new cat­a­lysts. Pro­fes­sor Del­gass has been a remark­ably gift­ed and ded­i­cat­ed teacher, both in the class­room and in the research lab­o­ra­to­ry. He has been rec­og­nized with the most pres­ti­gious teach­ing hon­ors on the Pur­due cam­pus. In his ser­vice to stu­dents and peers as Asso­ciate Head of the School of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, he has shown a true com­mit­ment to men­tor and edu­cate the next gen­er­a­tion of chem­i­cal engi­neers. His pas­sion for men­tor­ing grad­u­ate stu­dents and young fac­ul­ty was rec­og­nized with the inau­gur­al Col­lege of Engi­neer­ing Men­tor­ing Excel­lence Award. Many among our catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty, in acad­e­mia and in indus­try, have been touched by his thought­ful advice. For many years, he was the zeal­ous guardian and gen­tle stew­ard of the archives of our dis­ci­pline, as Edi­tor-in-Chief of Jour­nal of Catal­y­sis. He has ded­i­cat­ed his time and efforts to the orga­ni­za­tion of the 11th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis and of numer­ous sym­posia at AIChE, ACS and Catal­y­sis Soci­ety meet­ings. It is a fit­ting ges­ture of thanks that our com­mu­ni­ty has cho­sen to rec­og­nize the schol­ar­ship and ded­i­ca­tion of Pro­fes­sor Del­gass with this inau­gur­al award for ser­vice.