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2014 News Archive

16 December 2014

Silverman Inducted Into National Academy of Inventors

Professor Richard Silverman has been named into the National Academy of Inventors as a distinguished fellow. Election to NAI Fellow status is a high professional distinction accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society.

5 December 2014

Kanatzidis Receives the 2014 MRS Medal

The Materials Research Society (MRS) has awarded Professor Mercouri Kanatzidis the 2014 MRS Medal for his discovery and development of nanostructured thermoelectric materials. Kanatzidis was presented this award during the 2014 MRS Fall Meeting, Wednesday, December 3.

21 November 2014

Freedman Receives Dreyfus Award in Environmental Chemistry

The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation has selected Professor Danna Freedman as an award recipient to the Postdoctoral Program in Environmental Chemistry. The award provides $120,000 over two years to leading environmental chemistry faculty to appoint a postdoctoral fellow.

14 November 2014

Stoddart Receives 2014 MacDiarmid Medal

Professor Fraser Stoddart will receive the 2014 Alan G. MacDiarmid Medal from the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Chemistry. Stoddart is just the fourth person to receive the award after Jean-Marie Lehn (2011), Richard Schrock (2012), and Tobin Marks (2013). This is the highest award given by the department.  

11 November 2014

Rosenzweig and Silverman Attend AAAS Ceremony

Professor Amy Rosenzweig and Professor Richard Silverman were elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) Class of 2014. This year two of the six newly elected AAAS chemistry candidates are from the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University. See Full List

29 October 2014

Northwestern Chemistry Ranked 3rd in the World

The Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University has been ranked 3rd in the world according to the U.S. News annual ranking of the top 50 schools across the globe. The rankings are based on data gathered from Thomson Reuters' Web of Science over the past five years.

23 October 2014

Marks Group Featured in Nature Chemistry

Scientists in the Marks group have developed a green chemistry method to dearomatize pyridines using an earth-abundant lanthanide catalyst. The products are very important and useful building blocks for the pharmaceutical industry.

21 October 2014

Mirkin Receives Honorary Degree from UFRGS

Professor Chad Mirkin has been awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa degree from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil (UFRGS).

13 October 2014

Schatz Awarded the 2015 Mulliken Medal

Professor George Schatz has been awarded the 2015 Mulliken Medal and Lectureship by the University of Chicago. The Mulliken Medal is awarded every two years by UChicago to a scientist who has made outstanding contributions to chemistry.

9 October 2014

President Obama Acknowledges the International Institute for Nanotechnology

President Barack Obama's speech on economic policy here at Northwestern University gave a special acknowledgement to the International Institute for Nanotechonolgy (IIN). His support of the center comes right before the all-day public 2014 IIN symposium. News Center Story

18 September 2014

Hersam Named MacArthur Fellow

Professor Mark Hersam has been named a 2014 MacArthur Fellow, an honor bestowed with a $625,000 “no conditions” award. Hersam is one of 21 new MacArthur Fellows recognized this year by the MacArthur Foundation for “extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.” News Center Story

17 September 2014

Thomson Awarded Novartis Chemistry Lectureship

Professor Regan Thomson has been awarded a Novartis Chemistry Lectureship for 2015–2016. The Novartis Chemistry Lectureship is awarded to scientists in recognition of outstanding contributions to organic and computational chemistry, including applications to biology. These lectures pursue the goal of enhancing the exposure of Novartis scientists to cutting edge chemistry. Thomson will visit several Novartis sites around the world to deliver lectures on the research his group conducts at Northwestern University.

4 September 2014

Kanatzidis Receives the 2014 MRS Medal

The Materials Research Society (MRS) has awarded Professor Mercouri Kanatzidis the 2014 MRS Medal for his discovery and development of nanostructured thermoelectric materials. Kanatzidis will be presented this award during the 2014 MRS Fall Meeting at the Awards Ceremony on Wednesday, December 3, beginning at 6:30 p.m.

2 September 2014

Poeppelmeier Serves as Co-Editor for Newest Volume of Structure and Bonding

Bond Valences, the newest edition of Structure and Bonding has recently been published and released with Professor Kenneth Poeppelmeier as co-editor and author of the chapter titled, Bonding at Oxide Surfaces. Structure and Bonding publishes critical reviews on topics of research concerned with chemical structure and bonding.

22 August 2014

Weiss Receives the 2015 ACS Harry Gray Award for Creative Work in Inorganic Chemistry 

Professor Emily Weiss has received the 2015 Harry Gray Award for Creative Work in Inorganic Chemistry by a Young Investigator. This American Chemical Society (ACS) national award was given to Weiss for her innovative research in inorganic chemistry.

15 August 2014

Northwestern Chemistry Department Ranked Fourth Worldwide

The Chemistry Department ranked fourth on this year’s list of World Universities in Chemistry in the 2014 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). Northwestern continues to cement its international standing of having one of the top Chemistry departments in the world. 

25 July 2014

Mirkin Named Faculty Fellow in Pentagon Program

Professor Chad A. Mirkin has been selected by the U.S. Department of Defense as a fellow in the department’s National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellows (NSSEFF) program. Professor Mirkin was also one of six selected for the inaugural class and is the only person to be selected twice . Mirkin will receive up to $3 Million in support for up to five years for his project "Functional Crystals Through Encodable Hard and Soft Matter." News Center Story

21 July 2014

Harel and Mirkin Selected for Defense University Research Awards

Professors Elad Harel and Chad Mirkin have been selected for Defense Department research instrumentation awards. They were among 149 researchers chosen from 735 applicants, the awards range from $40,000 to $1.1 million. The Defense University Research Instrumentation Program, “supports the purchase of state-of-the-art equipment that augments current university capabilities or develops new capabilities to perform cutting-edge defense research and associated graduate student research training.” 

18 July 2014

Ratner Named Interim Dean of Weinberg College

Professor Mark Ratner has agreed to serve as the interim Dean of Weinberg College for the 2014-15 academic year. He succeeds Weinberg College Dean Sarah Mangelsdorf, who will become provost at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. During his 44 years at Northwestern, Mark has achieved a remarkable record of service, serving two terms as chair of the chemistry department, as associate dean in Weinberg College and currently as co-director of the Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN).  Mark is a true “university citizen,” and will be an excellent leader of Weinberg College.

7 July 2014

Priest Honored as One of the 175 Faces of Chemistry - Celebrating Diversity in Science

Professor Owen Priest was honored by the Royal Society of Chemistry as one of the 175 Faces of Chemistry. This honor recognizes the inspirational scientists who help showcase diversity in chemistry and more specifically Professor Priest's work as a prominent role model in the LGBT community.

18 June 2014

Silverman Receives Trustee Medal For Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Professor Richard Silverman was honored as the first person to receive the Northwestern University Trustee Medal for Faculty Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The medal recognizes the achievements of those who have made vital contributions to society through technological innovation.

16 June 2014

Stefan Kathman, Statsyuk Group Member, Receives ACSMEDI Predoctoral Fellowship
Stefan Kathman, a third-year graduate student in the Statsyuk group, has been awarded an ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry Predoctoral Fellowship for 2014-2015. This award recognizes the superior achievements of a graduate student, and his/her potential to become an independent investigator. The award consists of a $26,000 stipend and a plaque. Kathman will also present his research during the MEDI awards session at the fall, 2015 ACS National Meeting.

11 June 2014

Ten Chemistry Professors Named Highly Cited Researchers by Thomson Reuters
Professors Antonio Facchetti, Omar Farha, Joseph Hupp, Tobin Marks, Chad Mirkin, SonBinh Nguyen, George Schatz, Fraser Stoddart, Samuel Stupp, and Richard Van Duyne are among the 200 chemists listed in Thomson Reuters 2014 Highly Cited Researcher list.

To create this list, Thomson Reuters collected data on articles indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection from 2002 to 2012, selecting only articles that were labeled as Highly Cited Papers. Researchers were then selected and ranked based on the number of citations to his or her Highly Cited Papers to rank in the top 1% by total citations in the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) field in which they were considered.

6 June 2014

Chemistry offers our condolences to the family of Professor Emeritus and Former Department Chair Robert Letsinger
Robert L. Letsinger, a professor of chemistry at Northwestern University from 1946 to 1991, passed away peacefully on May 26, 2014, in Seattle, Washington. He was 92. Letsinger was chair of the NU chemistry department for 3 years and was a pioneer in creating the solid support concept for organic synthesis and in developing the rapid and efficient method for chemical synthesis of DNA used throughout the world today.

The family invites the Northwestern community to join them in a celebration of Robert Letsinger’s life at 10:30 a.m. June 28 at Trinity Methodist Church, 1024 Lake Ave., Wilmette, Illinois. News Center Story

3 June 2014

Northwestern Alum Joins Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty at UCLA
Dr. Alexander Spokoyny, a 2011 NU PhD graduate of the Mirkin group, will join the faculty at UCLA as an assistant professor in the Inorganic Chemistry division this fall. His research will be devoted to establishing new synthetic avenues, structural understanding, and applications for inorganic and organomimetic clusters.

3 June 2014

Van Duyne Receives the 2014 FACSS Charles Mann Award
The Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies (FACSS) has awarded Professor Richard P. Van Duyne the 2014 Charles Mann Award for Applied Raman Spectroscopy. This award is presented to an individual who has demonstrated advancement(s) at a conference presented by FACSS in the field of applied Raman Spectroscopy and/or demonstrated dedication to the advancement of the Raman spectroscopy program at a conference presented by FACSS and/or the ASTM Raman subcommittee.

28 May 2014

Mirkin Named the North American Winner of the 2014 ACS Nano Lectureship Award 
Professor Chad Mirkin will present the North American 2014 ACS Nano Lecture at the NANO 2014 conference in Moscow. The ACS Nano Lectureship Awards honors the contributions of three individuals who have made major impacts on the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology from around the world with one recipient each from: The Americas, Europe/Middle East/Africa, and Asia/Pacific.

27 May 2014

Kanatzidis Receives the ITS Outstanding Achievement Award
Professor Mercouri Kanatzidis received the 2014 International Thermoelectric Society (ITS) Outstanding Achievement Award. Kanatzidis will be presented this award for his innovative and revolutionary contributions to the design, synthesis, and characterization of advanced thermoelectric materials, including bulk nanostructured chalcogenides, endotaxially nanostructured materials, and hierarchical material architectures.

19 May 2014

Mirkin Receives the 2015 Emerson Center Lectureship Award
Professor Chad Mirkin will receive the 2015 Emerson Center Lectureship Award from Emory University. This award recognizes Mirkin's distinguished achievements in computational sciences and facilitates collaboration among the different disciplines in the field.

14 May 2014

Spotlight on Women in Science with Professor Odom
Teri W. Odom is featured in a story in the current issue of Weinberg, the College’s biannual magazine, where she and three other NU women scientists discuss the challenges that women face in the fields of math and science.

7 May 2014

Four NU Chemistry Professors Receive Prestigious RSC Awards
Professors Fraser Stoddart, Amy Rosenzweig, Joseph Hupp, and Tobin Marks have been selected to receive 2014 Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Awards in recognition of their excellence and achievements in chemistry.

Each faculty member and their respective award have been listed below:

5 May 2014

“The Next Big Thing in Photovoltaics”
A team of researchers led by Professors Mercouri Kanatzidis and Robert P. H. Chang (Materials Science and Engineering) is featured in a recent Time Magazine article for developing a new solar cell with good efficiency that uses tin instead of lead perovskite as the harvester of light. See News Center Story

1 May 2014

Kelleher Named Allen Distinguished Investigator
Professor Neil L. Kelleher has been selected to receive The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation’s Allen Distinguished Investigator award for his work in human cell lineage, a field that traces the development of cells over time in individuals. See News Center Story

1 May 2014

Odom Receives Distinguished Achievement Award from IPMI
The International Precious Metals Institute (IPMI) has awarded Professor Teri W. Odom the 2014 IPMI Carol Tyler Award. This prestigious award recognizes the achievement of a woman in the field of precious metals be it industry or academia. 

29 April 2014

Stoddart Elected To National Academy of Sciences
Professor Fraser Stoddart was elected into the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The NAS is a private, non-profit society of distinguished scholars committed to furthering science in America. Scientists are elected by their peers for outstanding contribution to research.

29 April 2014

Geiger and Salvo Study Finds 20 Percent Drop in Ozone Levels 
A study between Northwestern chemistry professor Franz Geiger and former Northwestern economist Alberto Salvo shows that when many residents of São Paulo, Brazil switched from ethanol to gasoline local ozone levels dropped 20 percent. See News Center Story

25 April 2014

Team Led By Kanatzidis Discovers Energy Saving Material
An interdisciplinary research team lead by Professor Mercouri Kanatzidis found that the crystal form of the chemical compound tin selenide is best at converting waste heat to electricity. This discovery could play a contributing role in reducing the waste of energy during the process of producing it. See News Center Story

23 April 2014

Rosenzweig and Silverman elected to AAAS
Professor Amy Rosenzweig and Professor Richard Silverman were elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) Class of 2014. This year two of the six newly elected AAAS chemistry candidates are from the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University. See Full List


21 April 2014

Farha to Speak at the 2014 Northwestern Climate Change Symposium
Chemistry Research Prof. Omar Farha will be one of several speakers at the 4th annual Northwestern Climate Change Symposium, presented by the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN). The Symposium with take place on May 16th. More on the Symposium

17 April 2014

Ratner Honored With NU Alumni Merit Award
Professor Mark Ratner received the 2014 Northwestern Alumni Merit Award in recognition of his achievements as a professor and acclaimed theoretical materials chemist. Ratner has published over 800 technical papers, four books and has received several major awards. See News Center Story

4 April 2014

$25M for Medical Application of Nanotechnology
A $15 million gift has been given to the Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine (IBNAM). In recognition of the new gift, IBNAM will be renamed the Louis A. Simpson and Kimberly K. Querrey Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine. This gift follows a $10 million gift received in 2012 that established the Louis A. Simpson and Kimberly K. Querrey Center for Regenerative Nanomedicine within IBNAM. The Institute is directed by Samuel Stupp. See News Center Story

2 April 2014

Fifteen Chemistry Students Awarded NSF Fellowships
Congratulations to the fifteen current Chemistry graduate students who have been awarded NSF Fellowships this year. Seven other students received Honorable Mentions for their applications. See the names of the winners here.

1 April 2014

Van Duyne Receives E. Bright Wilson Award in Spectroscopy
Professor Richard Van Duyne has been honored with the 2014 E. Bright Wilson Award in Spectroscopy, sponsored by the ACS Division of Physical Chemistry, for nearly for his nearly 40 years of pushing the limits of Raman spectroscopy.

19 March 2014

Remembering Donald DeFord

Donald D. DeFord, a professor of chemistry at Northwestern University from 1948 to 1987, passed away peacefully on March 1, 2014, in Peoria, Arizona. He was 95. DeFord was chair of the NU chemistry department for 9 years and was a pioneer in the use of operational amplifiers in chemistry. 

17 March 2014

Hupp Group Postdoc Wins Prestigious DFG Fellowship
Dr. Hassan Beyzavi was awarded a two-year postdoctoral fellowship by the German Research Foundation (DFG) based on his postdoctoral research proposal titled, “Epitaxially Grown Metal-Organic Frameworks: Design, Preparation, and Application as Multi-Component Films in Tandem Catalysis.”

17 March 2014

Northwestern Chemistry Student Receives ACS Award
Jenna Franke, a senior in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, has received the Undergraduate Award in Organic Chemistry given by the American Chemical Society’s Division of Organic Chemistry. This award recognizes seniors who display a significant aptitude in organic chemistry.

7 March 2014

Weiss Chosen to Give Emerging Leader Lecture
Professor Emily Weiss was chosen to present the 2014 Kavli Foundation Emerging Leader in Chemistry Lecture at the upcoming ACS National Meeting & Exposition. The lecture will be given Monday, March 17, from 4:00-5:00 PM at the Dallas Convention Center.

6 March 2014

Harris Selected as Young Investigator
Professor Dave Harris has been selected to participate in the U.S. Army Research Office Young Investigator Program. This program will fund the Harris Lab for the next three years with research aimed to stabilize and study reactive chemical species in metal-organic frameworks.

21 February 2014

Kristen Brown Wins Presidential Fellowship
Graduate student, Kristen Brown (Wasielewski Group) received the university's most prestigious award for outstanding intellectual and creative ability with the capacity to play an active part in the life of the Society of Fellows.

19 February 2014

Mirkin and Petrosko Win People's Choice Award
Professor Chad Mirkin, and research assistant professor Sarah Petrosko, received the International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge People’s Choice Award for their animated video “Spherical Nucleic Acids." Watch the video.

17 February 2014

Kanatzidis Named Einstein Professor
Professor Mercouri Kanatzidis has been named a 2014 Einstein Professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The Einstein Professorship is a key initiative of the CAS and is awarded to only those scientists working at the frontier of science and technology.

11 February 2014

Schatz to Receive Hirschfelder Prize
The Theoretical Chemistry Institute at the University of Wisconsin will award Professor George C. Schatz the 2014-15 Hirschfelder Prize in Theoretical Chemistry. This annual prize was established in 1991, and has been distinguished by a superb set of winners.

4 February 2014

Shiozaki Receives NSF Career Award
The NSF Career Award will provide Professor Toru Shiozaki and the Shiozaki Group with $625,000 over the next five years to carry out research focused on theories for magnetic properties of lanthanide and actinide complexes.

3 February 2014

Northwestern Chemistry Student Receives Foresight Institute Award
Jonathan Barnes, a graduate student in the Stoddart group, has received the 2013 Distinguished Student Award. The award is given to a college or graduate student whose work is notable in the field of nanotechnology.

31 January 2014

Harris Receives NSF Career Award
The NSF Career Award will provide Professor T. David Harris and the Harris Lab with $575,000 over the next five years to carry out research focused on the synthesis and studies of hybrid inorganic-organic one-dimensional magnetic materials.

31 January 2014

Chemistry Alum Receives Industrial Chemistry Award
David L. Hughes, a 1982 PhD graduate who worked with the late Professor Frederick G. Bordwell has received the 2014 ACS Award in Industrial Chemistry.

30 January 2014

Freedman and Shiozaki Receive Young Investigator Grant
Professor Danna Freedman and Professor Toru Shiozaki both received the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigators Grant. This grant is awarded to young scientists who show exceptional ability and promise for conducting research.

30 January 2014

Chemistry Alum Receives Prestigious Fellowship
Recent graduate student, Carson Bruns, jointly mentored by Fraser Stoddart and Sam Stupp, has been awarded a 2014–2017 Miller Research Fellowship. It is the second year running that a graduate student from the Stoddart group has received a Miller Research Fellowship.

28 January 2014

NU Chemistry Alums Honored by Department
Dr. Albert Fahrenbach (Stoddart Group) and Dr. Daniel Cohen (Scheidt Group), 2013 PhD graduates, have won the 2014 Award for Excellence in Graduate Research. This award, which recognizes outstanding achievements in research, comes with a monetary prize and an honorary plaque that will be presented to them in the Fall.

22 January 2014

Kanatzidis Honored as International Plenary Lecturer
Professor Mercouri Kanatzidis served as the Plenary Lecturer of the 2013 International Conference on Directions in Materials Science. The conference was hosted by C.N.R. Rao and the JNCASR in Bangalore, India.