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2016 News Archive

13 December 2016

Kanatzidis Awarded the 2016 Eric and Sheila Samson Prize

Professor Mercouri Kanatzidis from Northwestern University and Professor Gregory Stephanopoulos from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shared the 2016 Eric and Sheila Samson Prize. The prize totaling one million US dollars is the world’s largest monetary prize awarded in the field of alternative fuels and is awarded yearly to scientists who have made critical advancements towards achieving this goal. The winners are selected from a long list of worthy candidates recommended for the prize by university presidents and CEOs in industry from around the world. 

09 December 2016

Freedman Group Highlighted in Science Magazine

The Freedman Research group's recent discovery of the first Fe-Bi binary compound has been highlighted in Science Magazine. This finding was first published in ACS Central Science entitled "Discovery of FeBi2". These recent advances in high-pressure techniques offer a pathway toward the realization of new exotic materials such as this newly discovered iron and bismuth bond.

30 November 2016

Farha Interviewed by Nature Chemistry on MOF Research

Professor Omar Farha (Chief Science Officer & technical founder) and Ben Hernandez (Chief Executive Officer) of NuMat Technologies, talk to Nature Chemistry about the release of one of the first MOF-based commercial products and the challenges the journey posed. 

29 November 2016

Mirkin Appointed Honorary Professor at Shanghai Institute of Applied Sciences

Professor Chad A. Mirkin has been appointed an honorary professor a the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics. This appointment is the university's highest honor.

11 November 2016

Farha and NuMat Featured in C&EN News

Professor Omar Farha was featured in C&EN News along with his company, NuMat, as one of the "10 Start Ups To Watch."   NuMat, which was co-founded by Farha in 2013, is head quartered in Skokie and focuses on metal-organic framework compounds and porous nanomaterials for gas industry applications.  The company’s goal is to offer a safer and less energy-intensive way of handling gases.

7 November 2016

Poeppelmeier Elected to the Royal Spanish Academy of Sciences

Professor Kenneth Poeppelmeier has been elected a foreign member of the Real Academia de Ciencias (Royal Spanish Academy of Sciences). The society, founded in 1847, is dedicated to the study and research of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering and related sciences.

4 November 2016

Odom Featured on NU's Couples Podcast Series

Professor Teri Odom and her husband, Professor Brian Odom from the Department of Physics, were featured on Northwestern Now's Couples Podcast Series. The new series interviews couples who work at Northwestern and explores how they met, what drives their work, and how they keep this personal lives professional.  There are three stories in the series.

3 November 2016

Dichtel Awarded the Arthur K. Doolittle Award

Professor William Dichtel has been awarded the Arthur K. Doolittle Award for the best paper presented in a PMSE symposium at the 252nd ACS National Meeting titled "Porous Cyclodextrin Polymers for the Rapid Removal of Organic Pollutants from Water.” The award will be presented at the Spring 2017 ACS PMSE Awards session in San Francisco, CA.

1 November 2016

Farha Featured in Chemistry World

Professor Omar Farha has been profiled in Chemistry World, an online magazine published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, that features research, news and views from the global chemical science community.

26 October 2016

Freedman Group Discovers First Fe-Bi Binary Compound

The Freedman Research group recently discovered the first Fe-Bi binary compound. This finding was published in ACS Central Science entitled "Discovery of FeBi2". These recent advances in high-pressure techniques offer a pathway toward the realization of new exotic materials such as this newly discovered iron and bismuth bond.

26 October 2016

Mirkin Honored with the 2016 RUSNANOPRIZE

Professor Chad Mirkin has been awarded the 2016 RUSNANOPRIZE for his invention of spherical nucleic acids (SNAs), tiny structures used around the globe for medical diagnostics, therapeutics and research purposes. Mirkin received the international nanotechnology prize, worth 3 million rubles at an award ceremony held in Moscow on October 26, 2016.

9 October 2016

Kanatzidis Awarded the 2016 Samson-Prime Minister's Prize for Innovation

Professor Mercouri Kanatzidis will be receive the 2016 Samson-Prime Minister's Prize for Innovation in Alternative Fuels for Transportation.  This award was established in 2011 by the National Program to Reduce the Global Dependence on Oil along with Eric and Sheila Samson, international business leaders and philanthropists, to honor those invested in global innovation and researching scientific/technological breakthroughs in the field of alternative fuels for transportation.  The prize will be presented to Kanatzidis as part of the International Conference "The Fuel Choices Summit" being held in Tel Aviv Nov. 2nd-3rd.

7 October 2016

Stoddart to Deliver Haworth Memorial Lecture

Professor J. Fraser Stoddart has been awarded the Haworth Memorial Lectureship, to honor his research in the field of supramolecular chemistry.  The lectureship was founded in 1969 in commemoration of Sir Norman Haworth and is awarded every two years in recognition of contributions to carbohydrate chemistry.  He will deliver the plenary lecture at the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Carbohydrate Group 50th Anniversary Conference on 31 October–1 November 2016.

19 August 2016

Lam-Kiu Fong Awarded the 1st Annual WCC Merck Research Award

Lam-Kiu Fong, a graduate student in the Mirkin and Schatz research groups, has been awarded one of the 1st Annual ACS Women Chemists Committee (WCC) Merck Research Awards. This award recognizes excellence in 3rd & 4th year female graduate students with a research focus in one or more of the following - Organic, Medicinal, Analytical, Chemical Biology, Computational or Structural Chemistry and related disciplines.

10 August 2016

Farha to Receive 2016 ACS Young Investigator Award in Separation Science

Professor Omar Farha has been named the 2016 winner of the Satinder Ahuja Award for Young Investigators in Separation Science. The award is sponsored by the Analytical Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS). It will be presented at an award symposium at Pittcon in early March, 2017. The award recognizes Farha's outstanding scientific contributions in the area of chemical separations based on metal-organic framework materials. 

25 July 2016

10 Chemistry Faculty Top the List of Highly Cited Researchers in Elsevier Scopus

Northwestern University tops the 2016 List of Most Cited Researchers in Materials Science and Engineering by Elsevier Scopus Data. Ten of the twelve Northwestern faculty named are members of the Chemistry Department. Those listed include Joseph Hupp, Mercouri Kanatzidis, Tobin Marks, Chad Mirkin, SonBinh Nguyen, Richard Van Duyne, John Rogers, George Schatz, and Samuel Stupp. The top 300 in the field of materials science and engineering (MSE) are included in the list, which ranks them by the total citations of their papers the citation data is based on the Elsevier Scopus database.

18 July 2016

Odom Named to the 2016 Class of ACS Fellows

Professor Teri W. Odom was named to the 2016 class of American Chemical Society Fellows. The ACS Fellows Program was created to recognize members of ACS for outstanding achievements in and contributions to science, the profession, and the Society. Odom was recognized for designing multi-scale nanostructured surfaces that can control energy transfer processes at the nanoscale and for developing anisotropic gold nanostar conjugates for imaging and targeted therapeutics.

5 July 2016

Stupp to Join the Ranks of Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry

Professor Samuel I. Stupp will become a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) through the "Leaders in the Field" scheme. Through this scheme the RSC identifies outstanding individuals in the chemical science community to be invited to become Fellows. Stupp was nominated and chosen for his major contributions to supramolecular soft matter.

28 June 2016

Mirkin Selected as the 2017 William H. Nichols Medal Winner

Professor Chad Mirkin will receive the 2017 William H. Nichols Medal based on his outstanding achievements in the chemical sciences, especially for his landmark contributions in nanotechnology.  The Nichols Medal is one of the oldest and most prestigious awards of the American Chemical Society and the New York Section of the ACS. The 2017 William H. Nichols Medal Award Ceremony will be held on March 24, 2017

20 June 2016

Mrksich Receives 2016 iCON Innovator Award

Professor Milan Mrksich will receive the 2016 iCON Innovator Award. The award recognizes an active researcher/scientist within the ranks of life sciences education who is acknowledged by his or her peers as a leader in the contemporary teaching of, and scholarship in, biotechnology and its related sciences. The award will presented on the 10th annual iBIO iCON awards dinner on September 22, 2016.

17 June 2016

Nickolas Calta and Chuyang Cheng Named Finalists for the 2016 Reaxys PhD Prize

Nickolas Calta, a graduate from the Kanatzidis research group, and Chuyang Cheng, a recent graduate of the Stoddart research group, have been selected finalists for the 2016 Reaxys PhD Prize. The Reaxys PhD Prize, which was established in 2010, recognizes chemistry PhD students and recent graduates involved in ground-breaking chemistry and inspiring them promote and share their work.  Of the almost 450 applications submitted, 45 were selected as finalists.  Three winners will awarded at the Reaxys PhD Prize Symposium held in London on September 22-23, 2016.

13 June 2016

Marks Wins the 2017 Priestly Medal

In 2017, Tobin Marks will receive the Priestley Medal, the American Chemical Society’s highest honor, for “pioneering research in catalytic polymerization, organometallic chemistry, organic opto-electronic materials, and electronically functional metal oxides.”

7 June 2016

Nguyen and Harris Receive Teaching Awards from Weinberg

Professor SonBinh Nguyen was recognized with the "Award for Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research" from Weinberg, which he also received in 2002 and 2003. This award is given to a faculty member who exhibits particular skills in and dedication to mentoring undergraduate students engaged in research. For his excellence in undergraduate teaching, Professor T. David Harris was acknowledged with the "Distinguished Teaching Award."

2 June 2016

Odom Named as Finalist for the 2016 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists

Professor Teri Odom has been named Finalist in the Chemistry category for the 2016 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists. The annual Blavatnik Awards, established by the Blavatnik Family Foundation in 2007 and administered by the New York Academy of Sciences, celebrate exceptional young researchers who drive the next generation of scientific innovation by answering the most complex scientific questions of today. See Full List of Finalists

26 May 2016

Chuyang Cheng Receives 2015 Foresight Institute Distinguished Student Award

Chuyang Cheng, a recent graduate of the Stoddart research group, has been awarded the prestigious 2015 Distinguished Student Award from the Foresight Institute, a leading think tank and public interest organization focused on molecular nanotechnology. Cheng, was cited for his innovative work in the design and construction of the artificial molecular pump. News Center Story

17 May 2016

Jarad Mason Selected to Receive 2016 Dan David Scholarship

Jarad Mason, a postdoctoral fellow in the Mirkin research group has been awarded a 2016 Dan David Scholarship in recognition of his high level of scientific achievements and the promise the research holds for the future. Mason will be attending the ceremony on Monday, May 23, 2016 in Tel-Aviv to accept his $15,000 scholarship.

13 May 2016

Farha Named 2016 RSC CrystEngComm Plenary Speaker

Professor Omar Farha has been named the 2016 RSC CrystEngComm plenary lecturer. CrystEngComm is the journal for innovative research covering all aspects of crystal engineering - the design, including synthesis of crystals and crystal growth, synthesis and evaluation of solid-state materials with desired properties.

10 May 2016

Stupp Receives the RSC Soft Matter and Biophysical Chemistry Award

Professor Samuel I. Stupp has received the Soft Matter and Biophysical Chemistry Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). The award honors outstanding and innovative research in soft condensed matter and the application of physico-chemical techniques to biological problems. See News Story

9 May 2016

Harel Honored with Visit to White House in Recognition of Recent PECASE Award

Professor Elad Harel was congratulated along with more than 100 leading scientists and engineers from across the country, and around the world, by President Obama. Harel was honored for his pioneering work on the development of powerful optical techniques to probe the structure and dynamics of complex chemical systems. Harel as a recent recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), spent two days in Washington, D.C., meeting with Administration leaders and sharing the insights of their work.

20 April 2016

Wasielewski Honored as a Newly Elected Member of the AAAS

Professor Michael Wasielewski has been newly elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). The Academy's purpose is "to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people." Election to the AAAS is a high honor and Wasielewski joins the current list of members, which includes more than two hundred fifty Nobel and Pulitzer Prize Winners. See News Story

4 April 2016

Poeppelmeier Releases New Elsevier Series Book on Fluoride Materials

Professor Kenneth R. Poeppelmeier recently edited the first volume in a new Elsevier series titled Photonic and Electronic Properties of Fluoride Materials, along with Professor Alain Tressaud (Research Director at ICMCB-CNRS, Bordeaux University). The new book provides an overview of the important optical, magnetic, and non-linear properties of fluoride materials.

30 March 2016

Zwergel Featured in College Magazine

Eberhard E. Zwergel a Lecture Demonstrator for the department of chemistry was recently featured in College Magazine as one of the top 10 Professors at Northwestern. College Magazine is a daily guide to campus life written by students for students from different universities across the nation.

30 March 2016

Hupp and Odom named fellows by the Materials Research Society (MRS)

Northwestern University chemists Joseph T. Hupp and Teri W. Odom have been named fellows by the Materials Research Society (MRS). The highly selective MRS fellowship recognizes individuals for their significant contributions to materials research.

16 March 2016

Farha Named to the Editorial Team of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces

Professor Omar Farha has been named an Associate Editor of the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Founded in 2009, ACS-AMI is among the American Chemical Society’s fastest growing journals, both in term of articles published and in terms of measured scientific impact. The journal’s website states that it focuses on "how newly-discovered materials and interfacial processes can be developed and used for specific applications.”

3 March 2016

Harel Receives 2016 ONR Young Investigator Award

Professor Elad Harel receives the 2016 Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award. This award supports academic scientists and engineers who are in their first or second full-time tenure-track or tenure-track-equivalent academic appointment and and who show exceptional promise for doing creative research. Professor Harel was chosen for his research on Ultrasensitive Multi-Octave and Multi-dimensional Spectral Sensing by Single Element Detection and Compressive Sensing.

29 February 2016

Scheidt Elected Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry

Professor Karl Scheidt has been awarded the status of Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the United Kingdom’s prestigious professional chemistry association that was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1848 and currently comprises about 50,000 members, recognizes outstanding contributions to the advancement of the chemical sciences. Professor Scheidt is an internationally known organic chemist whose research focuses on the development of new catalytic reactions and the synthesis and application of molecules with important biological and structural attributes.  He is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.  The names of recently admitted Royal Society of Chemistry Fellows will be published in The Times of London in the near future.

26 February 2016

Facchetti Selected as 2016 PMSE Fellow

Professor Antonio Facchetti has been inducted into the sixteenth class of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering Division (PMSE) fellows. The fellow program honors PMSE Members for scientific and technological contributions to polymer material science and engineering. Facchetti was inducted for his "seminal contributions to the synthesis of novel polymeric materials, to the development of unconventional processes, to commercially-viable opto-electronic devices.”

24 February 2016

Harris Receives 2016 Sloan Research Fellowship

Professor T. David Harris has been honored with a prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship for 2016 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.  His research program is dedicated to utilizing synthetic inorganic chemistry for the construction of functional inorganic molecules and materials, with an emphasis on compounds that exhibit interesting magnetic properties.

18 February 2016

Harel Honored with Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers

Professor Elad Harel named a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the most prestigious award given by the United States Government to science and engineering professionals in the beginning phase of their independent research careers. News Center Story

17 February 2016

Poeppelmeier Finishes New Elsevier Series Book on Fluoride Materials

Professor Kenneth R. Poeppelmeier recently edited and published the first volume in a new Elsevier series titled Photonic and Electronic Properties of Fluoride Materials. The new book provides an overview of the important optical, magnetic, and non-linear properties of fluoride materials.

15 February 2016

Farha named Kavli Foundation Emerging Leader in Chemistry Lecturer

Research Professor Omar Farha, an expert on the chemistry of crystalline porous coordination polymers and MOFs, will lecture at the American Chemical Society National Fall Meeting this August hosted in Philadelphia. It is awarded to a chemical scientist under the age of 40, who is ten years or less beyond the PhD.  It is the most prestigious lecture award conferred by the ACS for young investigators.

11 February 2016

Mirkin Receives International Dan David Prize

Professor Chad Mirkin has received the prestigious 2016 Dan David Prize in the Future Time Dimension. This award honors his outstanding contributions to the development of the field of nanoscience and its multifaceted applications in medicine, materials science, and technologies.

8 February 2016

Stupp Group Develops Completely New Kind of Polymer

A completely new hybrid polymer has been developed by the Stupp Research group that might one day be used in artificial muscles or other life-like materials; for delivery of drugs, biomolecules or other chemicals; in materials with self-repair capability; and for replaceable energy sources. The study will be published in the Jan. 29 issue of Science

2 February 2016

Geiger Receives 2016 Northwestern Faculty Diversity Award

Professor Franz Geiger was honored with the 2016 Northwestern Faculty Diversity Award from The Graduate School. Geiger was recognized for contributing "to an environment which values diverse backgrounds, approaches, and perspectives." The 2016 Awards and Recognition Dinner will take place on March 8, 2016. Awards will be presented in three main areas, reflecting The Graduate School's Strategic Plan: Diversity, Service and Engagement. Tickets to attend the event are available here.

1 February 2016

Hupp and Odom Elected to the 2016 MRS Fellows

Professor Joseph T. Hupp and Professor Teri W. Odom have been elected to the class of 2016 Materials Research Society (MRS) Fellows. The title of MRS Fellow honors those MRS members who are notable for their distinguished research accomplishments and their outstanding contributions to the advancement of materials research, world-wide. 

29 January 2016

Kanatzidis Awarded the Wilhem Manchot Professorship

The Chemistry department of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Jürgen Manchot Foundation have awarded the Professor Mercouri Kanatzidis, the 2015 Wilhelm Manchot Research Professorship. The TUM honors his pioneering work on thermoelectric materials.

28 January 2016

ACS Central Science Spotlights New Methods Developed by Kelleher Research Group

The Kelleher research group reports a new way to greatly speed up the process of finding molecules and discovering new chemical identities that could help fight human disease. In a recent article in ACS Central Science Neil Kelleher, William Metcalf and colleagues surmised that if they evaluated the amount of various natural products and compared that to the abundance of these assembly lines, they could determine which genes produced which natural products for many dozens of cases in parallel.

27 January 2016

Stupp and Van Duyne Inducted into the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering

The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) has announced the pending induction of Professor Samuel Stupp and Professor Richard P. Van Duyne, to its College of Fellows. Professor Stupp was nominated, reviewed, and elected by peers and members of the College of Fellows for the development of bioactive and self-assembling supramolecular biomaterials for regenerative medicine. Professor Van Duyne was nominated, reviewed, and elected by peers and members of the College of Fellows for contributions to the field of Raman spectroscopy and pioneering applications of Surface Enhances Raman Spectroscopy to biology and medicine. The AIMBE College of Fellows is comprised of the top two percent of medical and biological engineers in the country. AIMBE’s mission is to recognize excellence in, and advocate for, the fields of medical and biological engineering in order to advance society.

25 January 2016

Harel Group Paper Highlighted in Nature Communications

The Harel research group develops a new ultrasensitive encoding and detection method to track the electronic structure and ultrafast dynamics of complex chemical and biological systems. The development is highlighted in the latest edition of Nature Communications.

19 January 2016

NU Tops the List in 2015 with the Most Highly Cited Researchers in Chemistry

Professors Antonio Facchetti, Omar Farha, Jiaxing Huang, Joseph Hupp, Tobin Marks, Chad Mirkin, SonBinh Nguyen, George Schatz, Karl A Scheidt, Randall Q Snurr, Fraser Stoddart, and Richard Van Duyne are among the 205 chemists listed in Thomson Reuters 2015 Highly Cited Researcher list. With 12 faculty members on list Northwestern Chemistry holds the distinction of having the most individual Highly Cited Researchers in the field of chemistry in 2015, according to Thomson Reuters.

To create this list, Thomson Reuters collected data on articles indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection designated by Essential Science Indicators as Highly Cited Papers. Researchers ranking among the top 1% most cited for their subject field and year of publication earned the mark of exceptional impact.

15 January 2016

MacArthur Fellow William Dichtel to Join Northwestern

MacArthur Fellow and organic chemist William R. Dichtel will join Northwestern University as a professor of chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, the University announced today.

15 January 2016

Geiger Awarded Status of Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry

Professor Franz Geiger has been awarded the status of fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the United Kingdom’s prestigious professional chemistry association that was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1848 and currently comprises about 50,000 members, recognizes outstanding contributions to the advancement of the chemical sciences. Geiger is internationally known for his pioneering work on environmental interfaces. He is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The names of recently admitted Royal Society of Chemistry Fellows will be published in The Times of London in the near future.

14 January 2016

Mirkin Receives the 2016 American Institute of Chemists Gold Medal

Professor Chad Mirkin will receive the 2016 American Institute of Chemists Gold Medal. The Gold Medal is The Institute's highest award. It is given annually to a person who has stimulated activities of service to the science of chemistry or the profession of chemist.

08 January 2016

Freedman Group Paper Highlighted in ACS Central Science

A recent paper authored by the Freedman Research Group, titled Millisecond Coherence Time in a Tunable Molecular Electronic Spin Qubit has been featured by ACS Central Science as part of their "First Reactions."