I am pleased to announce that Dr. Thomas Deg­nan of Exxon­Mo­bil Research and Engi­neer­ing is the recip­i­ent of the F.G. Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis, spon­sored by the Grace Davi­son oper­at­ing seg­ment of W.R. Grace & Co. and the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The Award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2013 NAM in Louisville, KY. The recip­i­ent will present lec­tures at most of the affil­i­at­ed Clubs/Societies dur­ing the two-year peri­od cov­ered by this Lectureship. 

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 the dis­cov­ery of new cat­alyt­ic reac­tions and sys­tems of poten­tial indus­tri­al importance.

Tom Deg­nan is an inter­na­tion­al­ly-rec­og­nized leader in the chem­istry and appli­ca­tions of zeo­lite catal­y­sis. Through his pub­li­ca­tions and numer­ous lec­tures, he has pro­vid­ed many exam­ples of the val­ue of fun­da­men­tal sci­en­tif­ic con­cepts in the prac­ti­cal deploy­ment of cat­alyt­ic process­es. His record of schol­ar­ship stands along­side a remark­able list of more than 100 U.S. patents and his unique blend of cre­ativ­i­ty, lead­er­ship, and clar­i­ty of thought has made him not only a lead­ing indus­tri­al inven­tor, but also an ambas­sador of indus­tri­al catal­y­sis research in our com­mu­ni­ty at large.

Tom is specif­i­cal­ly rec­og­nized with the F. G. Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship for his con­tri­bu­tions to the dis­cov­ery, devel­op­ment, and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of mol­e­c­u­lar sieves as cat­a­lysts and for his key role in devel­op­ing their appli­ca­tions as cat­a­lysts in impor­tant large-scale indus­tri­al process­es. Through­out his indus­tri­al career, he has made sem­i­nal con­tri­bu­tions to the dis­cov­ery and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of more than ten cat­alyt­ic process­es for the pro­duc­tion of high-per­for­mance lubri­cants, clean fuels, and petro­chem­i­cals. He led a research group that dis­cov­ered how active sites at zeo­lite crys­tal sur­faces show unique prop­er­ties in the alky­la­tion of aro­mat­ics and coined the term “sur­face pock­et” catal­y­sis to describe these inor­gan­ic enzyme-like cat­alyt­ic struc­tures. His fun­da­men­tal stud­ies of paraf­fin iso­mer­iza­tion on bifunc­tion­al shape-selec­tive cat­a­lysts demon­strat­ed the essen­tial inter­play between dif­fu­sion and reac­tion process­es and led to the dis­cov­ery of sev­er­al new cat­a­lysts for the syn­the­sis of high-qual­i­ty fuels and lubri­cants. His research vision and man­age­ment lead­er­ship also led to cat­alyt­ic process­es with unprece­dent­ed selec­tiv­i­ty for the pro­duc­tion of p‑xylenes.

I am delight­ed that the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety has cho­sen to rec­og­nize the con­tri­bu­tions of Dr. Thomas Deg­nan with this lec­ture­ship. I speak with the voice of our grate­ful com­mu­ni­ty in also thank­ing the man­age­ment of W.R. Grace& Co. for its con­tin­u­ing sup­port of this lectureship.
 
Enrique Igle­sia
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society