Awards presented by the North American Catalysis Society

 
The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety spon­sors six pres­ti­gious awards and lec­ture­ships to rec­og­nize the accom­plish­ments of catal­y­sis sci­en­tists and to pro­mote the advance­ment of catal­y­sis sci­ence in North Amer­i­ca and world-wide. These awards are described in the NACS web site (http://www.nacatsoc.org/awards_desc.asp).

Three of these awards include ple­nary lec­tures at NACS bian­nu­al meet­ings (Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catal­y­sis, Paul H. Emmett Award in Fun­da­men­tal Catal­y­sis, Michel Boudart Award for the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis, the lat­ter joint­ly pre­sent­ed with the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties). The F.G. Cia­pet­ta and Robert Bur­well Lec­ture­ships in Catal­y­sis involve lec­tures at local club meet­ings and the pre­sen­ta­tion of the awards at the NACS meet­ing ban­quet. The NACS Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis is the most recent recog­ni­tion insti­tut­ed by the Soci­ety. All of these awards are pre­sent­ed every two years and the nom­i­na­tion dead­lines are list­ed in the NACS web site. 

Canvassing and Nomination Processes

 
NACS encour­ages all nom­i­na­tions for these awards and nom­i­na­tors and nom­i­nees need not be NACS mem­bers. The Pres­i­dent instructs the Vice Pres­i­dent to form a can­vass­ing com­mit­tee for each cycle of every award to ensure a full slate of out­stand­ing can­di­dates. This com­mit­tee is led by the NACS Vice-Pres­i­dent and con­sists of pre­vi­ous award recip­i­ents and rec­og­nized experts with­in the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty at-large. The com­mit­tee iden­ti­fies wor­thy can­di­dates and its Chair seeks nom­i­na­tors for these can­di­dates, but pro­vides no spe­cif­ic guid­ance about the prepa­ra­tion of the nom­i­na­tion pack­ages beyond that pro­vid­ed on the NACS web site. The Chair also instructs the Sec­re­tary to con­tact all NACS local rep­re­sen­ta­tives to request that they can­vass for nom­i­na­tions with­in their local sec­tions. All nom­i­na­tion dead­lines and cycles are also announced in the quar­ter­ly NACS newsletter.

Award Recipient Nomination Process

 
The jury that selects each NACS award recip­i­ent con­sists of sci­en­tists and engi­neers rec­og­nized as experts and rep­re­sent­ing indus­try, acad­e­mia, and nation­al labs. The mem­bers of this jury must have no affil­i­a­tion with any of the nom­i­nees and are specif­i­cal­ly asked to dis­close any con­flicts of inter­est and to dis­qual­i­fy them­selves with­out prej­u­dice when a con­flict exists. The selec­tion jury is appoint­ed by the NACS Pres­i­dent, who seeks guid­ance in select­ing its mem­bers from the Vice Pres­i­dent and from senior mem­bers of the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty. The iden­ti­ty of the jury mem­bers is kept in the strictest con­fi­dence and known only to the Pres­i­dent; the mem­bers are also required to keep their par­tic­i­pa­tion in these com­mit­tees confidential.

The NACS Pres­i­dent pro­vides the jury with the nom­i­na­tion pack­ages for all can­di­dates with­in two weeks of the dead­line; in the inter­ven­ing time, poten­tial jury mem­bers are asked about their will­ing­ness to serve. The mem­bers of the jury rank the can­di­dates and pro­vide spe­cif­ic details for their selec­tion in the case of the top three can­di­dates. In some cas­es, jury mem­bers are asked to again rank the top two can­di­dates side-by-side, after con­sid­er­ing their respec­tive nom­i­na­tion pack­ages once again.

The recip­i­ent of the Award and his/her nom­i­na­tors are informed of the deci­sion of the jury, fol­lowed by noti­fi­ca­tion of jury mem­bers and of nom­i­na­tors of the oth­er can­di­dates. A for­mal announce­ment, com­posed by the Pres­i­dent in con­sul­ta­tion with the recip­i­ent and the nom­i­na­tor, is pub­lished in the NACS web site and the NACS newslet­ter and soon there­after in Chem­i­cal and Engi­neer­ing News. The awards are all pre­sent­ed at the bien­ni­al NACS meet­ing, where the respec­tive cita­tions are read and the award win­ners receive a plaque.

The NACS com­mu­ni­ty at-large deserves con­grat­u­la­tions and thanks for the excel­lent cadre of nom­i­nees that it has put forth and cho­sen and for their ded­i­ca­tion as nom­i­na­tors and as mem­bers of the jury.
 
Thanks,
 
Enrique Igle­sia
President
 
Bruce Cook
Vice President