Dr. Burtron H. Davis has been select­ed as the recip­i­ent of the 2014 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 Research and Engi­neer­ing and Clari­ant and will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the 2015 NAM in Pittsburgh.

Dr. Davis is being rec­og­nized in par­tic­u­lar for his con­tri­bu­tion to indus­tri­al research prob­lems with a detailed under­stand­ing of cat­alyt­ic trans­for­ma­tions. His work in iso­topic label­ing stud­ies has helped obtain in depth knowl­edge of reac­tion path­ways of indus­tri­al­ly rel­e­vant process­es and prob­ing cat­alyt­ic mech­a­nisms. Specif­i­cal­ly, Dr. Davis has focused on Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch reac­tion mech­a­nisms and cat­alyt­ic trans­for­ma­tions using cobalt, iron and ruthe­ni­um-based cat­a­lysts research­ing fun­da­men­tal questions
with indus­try rel­e­vance. Dur­ing his five decade career, Dr. Davis has co-authored more than 500 peer reviewed pub­li­ca­tions and orga­nized numer­ous sym­posia in var­i­ous areas of catalysis.

In ser­vice to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty, Dr. Davis has served the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety in var­i­ous capac­i­ties includ­ing orga­niz­ing the 12th NAM in Lex­ing­ton and serv­ing as the Hon­orary Chair of the 23rd NAM in Louisville. For the past three decades Dr. Davis has func­tioned as a his­to­ri­an of the NACS and the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty. His fore­sight, ded­i­ca­tion and efforts to archive and record the his­to­ry of the soci­ety and cat­alyt­ic sci­ence has led to an unprece­dent­ed NACS host­ed col­lec­tion of more than 1300 videos of con­fer­ence pre­sen­ta­tions and one on one inter­views. This col­lec­tion stands as a tes­ta­ment to the ded­i­ca­tion of Burt Davis to the preser­va­tion of the his­to­ry of catal­y­sis for gen­er­a­tions to come.