Gary B. McVick­er passed away on Jan­u­ary 22, 2010 sur­round­ed by friends and fam­i­ly. The catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty has lost one of its lead­ers and the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety one of his loy­al and thought­ful sup­port­ers. An obit­u­ary will appear here shortly.
 
Details are includ­ed in the local obit­u­ary: Hun­ter­don Coun­ty’s week­ly paper

The Organ­ic Reac­tions Catal­y­sis Soci­ety is pleased to announce its award win­ners, who will be hon­ored at the 23rd ORCS Con­fer­ence March 14–18, 2010 in Mon­terey, CA USA.

Dr. Hans-Ulrich Blaser of Solvias AG has been select­ed as the 2009 Paul Rylan­der Awardee for excel­lence in catal­y­sis, notably for impor­tant devel­op­ments in chemos­e­lec­tive and stere­os­e­lec­tive hydro­gena­tions, includ­ing the the syn­the­sis of (S)- metachlor.

Prof. Matthias Beller of Leib­niz Insti­tute for Catal­y­sis has been select­ed as the 2010 Paul Rylan­der Awardee for excel­lence in catal­y­sis based on his sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions devel­op­ing and apply­ing nov­el homo­ge­neous cat­a­lysts to organ­ic syn­the­sis. His work on Pd-cat­alyzed cross-cou­pling, reduc­tive car­bony­la­tion and hydroaminomethy­la­tion, to name a few, have opened new con­cepts in the con­struc­tion of com­plex organ­ic molecules.

Dr. Steve Schmidt of W.R. Grace & Co. has been select­ed as the 2010 Mur­ray Raney Awardee for advance­ments in the tech­nol­o­gy of acti­vat­ed base met­al cat­a­lysts. His work on the devel­op­ment of plat­inum group met­al pro­mot­ed Raney® cat­a­lysts was notable for elu­ci­dat­ing fun­da­men­tal prop­er­ties and also in iden­ti­fy­ing com­mer­cial­ly rel­e­vant applications.

Prof. Robert Augus­tine, Emer­i­tus Seton Hall Uni­ver­si­ty is the 2010 Rus­sell Malz Awardee for dis­tin­guished ser­vice to the Organ­ic Reac­tions Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. Prof. Augus­tine was part of the found­ing group estab­lish­ing ORCS, played a sig­nif­i­cant role in gov­er­nance of the Soci­ety serv­ing 20+ years on the Board and as the Chair of the 1986 conference.

More infor­ma­tion about ORCS and its 23rd Con­fer­ence March 14–18, 2010 can be found at our web­site, www.orcs.org.

I am hon­ored by this oppor­tu­ni­ty to serve our com­mu­ni­ty and in awe of the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties that it presents.

I speak with the grate­ful voice of our com­mu­ni­ty in acknowl­edg­ing the ded­i­ca­tion and con­tri­bu­tions of the out­go­ing offi­cers: John Armor and Umit Ozkan and of the con­tin­u­ing offi­cers John Byrne and Edrick Morales. I also wel­come Bruce Cook, Hong-Xin Li, and C.Y. Chen as new offi­cers and thank them for their com­mit­ment to serve.

The youth, vig­or, and qual­i­ty evi­dent at our 21st NAM in San Fran­cis­co served to con­firm the intel­lec­tu­al and finan­cial health of our dis­ci­pline and of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. Catal­y­sis con­tin­ues to serve as the enabling dis­ci­pline in ener­gy sup­ply and con­ver­sion, in the syn­the­sis of fuels and chem­i­cals, and in our thought­ful care for the envi­ron­ment; it remains an essen­tial con­trib­u­tor to qual­i­ty of life and to sus­tain­able growth in the world at large. As a dis­ci­pline, its vis­i­bil­i­ty and its sup­port research base con­tin­ue to grow, fueled by a com­bi­na­tion of intel­lec­tu­al advances, new con­cepts and tools, evolv­ing soci­etal needs, and a con­sis­tent track record of prac­ti­cal impact.

The Soci­ety remains in excel­lent finan­cial health. Its long-stand­ing com­mit­ment to serve the com­mu­ni­ty remains firm­ly entrenched with­in our very active local clubs and their ded­i­cat­ed lead­ers and mem­bers and amongst their coun­ter­parts in the nation­al orga­ni­za­tion. We are com­mit­ted to con­tin­ue to return to our mem­bers the ben­e­fits of their ded­i­ca­tion by grow­ing our sup­port for new gen­er­a­tions of researchers and ideas, so that they enter safe­ly and choose to stay. To bal­ance nov­el­ty with his­to­ry, we intend to expand our ini­tia­tives to pre­serve and pro­claim our her­itage and, in doing so, to rec­og­nize the con­tri­bu­tions of the intel­lec­tu­al forces that shaped the con­cepts and tools upon which we build our future as a catal­y­sis discipline.
We encour­age your com­ments and sug­ges­tions, as well as your involve­ment in all activ­i­ties and ini­tia­tives of the Soci­ety. You can always reach me via email at iglesia@berkeley.edu.
 
Enrique Igle­sia
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society
Berke­ley, CA
20 Octo­ber 2009

The Award for Excel­lence in Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion is spon­sored by the Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion Board and its Inter­na­tion­al Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee. The award has been pre­sent­ed just 5 times in the past twen­ty years, and rec­og­nizes indi­vid­u­als who — in the eyes of their peers — have made note­wor­thy con­tri­bu­tions in the field of nat­ur­al gas con­ver­sion and the devel­op­ment of tech­nolo­gies that are like­ly to play an impor­tant part in meet­ing the world’s chem­i­cal and fuel require­ments in the years ahead.

Please vis­it the award web page at ngbc.kma.net/index.asp?sid=54 for addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion and the nom­i­na­tion process.

The 2010 GRC on Catal­y­sis will be held at Col­by Sawyer Col­lege, NH from June 27, 2010 through July 2, 2010. The meet­ing chair is Abhaya Datye (datye@unm.edu) from the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Mex­i­co in Albu­querque, NM and the Vice-chair is Bruce Cook (Bruce.Cook2@bp.com) from BP Prod­ucts NA in Naperville, IL.

In 2010, the Catal­y­sis con­fer­ence will move to a new­ly-fur­bished con­fer­ence room with seat­ing for 150, a new poster ses­sion area that will allow 40 posters per ses­sion. The dorm rooms pro­vide sin­gle and dou­ble accom­mo­da­tions, free WIFI and the reg­is­tra­tion fee includes all meals and the famous lob­ster din­ner on Thurs­day night. After­noons are open to enjoy the New Eng­land ambiance with oppor­tu­ni­ties for hik­ing, sail­ing, golf and ten­nis to cre­ate an out­stand­ing con­fer­ence that will help you net­work with col­leagues, and make long last­ing con­nec­tions. Please vis­it the con­fer­ence web site for more details and to reg­is­ter for the meet­ing: www.grc.org/programs.aspx?year=2010&program=catalysis.

The 2010 GRC on Catal­y­sis will focus on sev­er­al areas that are of both fun­da­men­tal and prac­ti­cal impor­tance. The under­ly­ing theme is to high­light the role of catal­y­sis in meet­ing society’s needs for ener­gy and mate­ri­als. The con­fer­ence is orga­nized into 9 sessions:

1. Alter­na­tive Feed­stocks For Chem­i­cals And Fuels
2. Nov­el Cat­alyt­ic Materials
3. 3D Imag­ing Of Catalysts
4. Spec­troscopy, With Spe­cial Empha­sis On Het­ero­ge­neous Catal­y­sis In The Liq­uid Phase
5. Mol­e­c­u­lar Insights Through Theory
6. The Sci­ence Of Cat­a­lyst Synthesis
7. Design Of Cat­a­lysts For Excep­tion­al Stability
8. Sur­face Science
9. Future Per­spec­tives On Catalysis

The themes and the speak­ers have been cho­sen to inter­weave aca­d­e­m­ic and indus­tri­al inter­est, as has been the very effec­tive tra­di­tion of this long run­ning con­fer­ence, and to illus­trate broad, fore­front con­cepts in the field of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis. By includ­ing senior sci­en­tists as dis­cus­sion lead­ers, we hope to add a diver­si­ty of per­spec­tive and enhance the lev­el of dis­cus­sions. A spe­cial effort was made to attract speak­ers and dis­cus­sion lead­ers from indus­try. Finan­cial sup­port will be avail­able for grad­u­ate stu­dents, post-docs and junior fac­ul­ty. Please vis­it the NACS web­site in Feb­ru­ary 2010 for more details.

The Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis is spon­sored by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. It is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in even num­bered years. The Award con­sists of a plaque, an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000, and par­tial sup­port ($1000) for trav­el to the meet­ing where the award is pre­sent­ed. The Award will be pre­sent­ed for the first time at the 2011 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Society.

The Award rec­og­nizes an indi­vid­ual who has advanced cat­alyt­ic chem­istry or engi­neer­ing through a com­bi­na­tion of sig­nif­i­cant ser­vice to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty and tech­ni­cal accom­plish­ments. Ser­vice may include teach­ing, men­tor­ing, edi­to­r­i­al, and orga­ni­za­tion­al activ­i­ties, as well as lead­er­ship in the orga­ni­za­tion of con­fer­ences and work­shops. These activ­i­ties must have ben­e­fit­ed specif­i­cal­ly the North Amer­i­can catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty and more gen­er­al­ly the field at large.

Selec­tion of the awardee will be made with­out regard to age, sex, nation­al­i­ty, or affil­i­a­tion. The nom­i­na­tion must con­tain a crit­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of the sig­nif­i­cance of can­di­date’s achieve­ments and a spe­cif­ic state­ment about the ser­vice and tech­ni­cal con­tri­bu­tions on which the nom­i­na­tion is based. Nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments (short sum­ma­ry state­ment of the con­tri­bu­tions (300 words); cur­ricu­lum vitae; one nom­i­nat­ing let­ter and no more than two let­ters of sup­port) must be sent as a sin­gle elec­tron­ic PDF file to the Pres­i­dent of the Soci­ety (Enrique Igle­sia; iglesia@berkeley.edu) . Nom­i­na­tions for the 2010 Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice will close on Novem­ber 24, 2009. Receipt of the nom­i­na­tion will be acknowl­edged by return email with­in 48 hours. 

The F.G. Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis is spon­sored by the Davi­son Chem­i­cal Divi­sion of W.R. Grace & Com­pa­ny and The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The Soci­ety admin­is­ters this Lec­ture­ship. It is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in even num­bered years. The Award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000. Trav­el expens­es are pro­vid­ed (through a trav­el escrow fund admin­is­tered by the NACS) in those unusu­al instances when such expens­es rep­re­sent a bur­den that the com­pa­ny or insti­tu­tion where the con­tri­bu­tions were made can­not rea­son­ably assume. 

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 on the dis­cov­ery of new cat­alyt­ic reac­tions and sys­tems of poten­tial indus­tri­al impor­tance. The recip­i­ent will be select­ed on the basis of accom­plish­ments demon­strat­ed through con­tri­bu­tions to the cat­alyt­ic lit­er­a­ture and of the cur­ren­cy of these achieve­ments. The recip­i­ent is expect­ed to present his work at most of the affil­i­at­ed Clubs/Societies dur­ing a peri­od of two years after the recip­i­ent is announced.

Selec­tion of the awardee will be made with­out regard to age, sex, nation­al­i­ty, or affil­i­a­tion. The nom­i­na­tion must con­tain a crit­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of the sig­nif­i­cance of can­di­date’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions and a spe­cif­ic state­ment about the contribution(s) on which the nom­i­na­tion is based. Nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments (short sum­ma­ry state­ment of the con­tri­bu­tions (300 words); cur­ricu­lum vitae; one nom­i­nat­ing let­ter and no more than two let­ters of sup­port) must be sent as a sin­gle elec­tron­ic PDF file to the Pres­i­dent of the Soci­ety (Enrique Igle­sia; iglesia@berkeley.edu). Nom­i­na­tions for the 2010 Cia­pet­ta Award will close on Novem­ber 10, 2009. Receipt of the nom­i­na­tion will be acknowl­edged by return email with­in 48 hours. 

As one of my final tasks, I would like to pro­vide some high­lights from actions of your Board of Direc­tors at their annu­al meet­ing in San Fran­cis­co. The four new Direc­tors-at-Large were seat­ed (B. Gates, S. Soled, Bob Davis, and Jing­guang Chen). The Board dis­cussed the ques­tion of cre­at­ing stu­dent chap­ters in addi­tion to local clubs. The Board encour­ages under­grad­u­ate stu­dents to get involved with the local catal­y­sis club by con­tact­ing any one of the offi­cers or club rep­re­sen­ta­tive list­ed on the NACS web­site (www.nacatsoc.org).

• Pri­or to our elec­tions of offi­cers, we cre­at­ed a new offi­cer role, that of Lead Trustee, who is in charge of guid­ing the invest­ments of the Soci­ety. Fur­ther, in this time of rapid and elec­tron­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tions, most felt that the posi­tion of For­eign Sec­re­tary in addi­tion to Sec­re­tary was super­flu­ous, so we vot­ed to elim­i­nate the office of For­eign Sec­re­tary and dis­trib­ute the work among oth­er offi­cers. In this regard, I want to espe­cial­ly thank W. Curt Con­ner for his many years of valu­able ser­vice to the Soci­ety in the role of For­eign Secretary. 
• The Board also agreed to direct our offi­cers to con­trol expens­es to assure that they don’t exceed our income. There was a unan­i­mous feel­ing that in sup­port­ing a num­ber of edu­ca­tion­al mis­sions, we, as a Soci­ety, should not spend more mon­ey than we can earn from invest­ments and mem­ber­ship fees. 
• The new NACS offi­cers for 2009–2013 are Pres­i­dent, Enrique Igle­sia, Vice Pres­i­dent, Bruce Cook, Trea­sur­er, CY Chen, Sec­re­tary, H‑X Li, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor, Edrick Morales, and John Byrne, Lead Trustee.
• The Board agreed to make it stan­dard pol­i­cy in future meet­ings (as has been the case for the last 2 NAM meet­ings) that record­ing meet­ing events through audio­vi­su­al or pho­to­graph­ic meth­ods is pro­hib­it­ed at all NAM events with­out con­sent of the pre­sen­ter. Also, since dues col­lec­tion and time­ly lists of local club offi­cers is crit­i­cal to the year­ly oper­a­tion of the NACS, pay­ments of local club year­ly stu­dent awards will be con­di­tioned upon hav­ing a cur­rent mem­ber­ship list and up-to-date dues payments.
• The meet­ing Chair (Galen Fish­er) of the 22nd NAM, oper­at­ed through the Michi­gan Catal­y­sis Soci­ety sum­ma­rized their prepa­ra­tions for the June 2011 meet­ing in Detroit, Michi­gan. The Tri-State Club rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Jür­gen Lade­beck, sum­ma­rized their ear­ly efforts in orga­niz­ing the 23rd NAM meet­ing in Louisville, Ken­tucky in June of 2013.

With the suc­cess­ful con­clu­sion of the 21st NAM in San Fran­cis­co, I want to per­son­al­ly thank the co-chairs (Enrique Igle­sia, Bruce Gates, and Char­lie Wil­son) and their orga­niz­ing com­mit­tee for their tire­less activ­i­ties and their commitment.
 
John Armor