The purpose of the Richards
Medal Committee is to select the recipient of the Theodore
William Richards (TWR) Medal and arrange for the award ceremonies.
The Chair places a call
for nominations into the Nucleus (editorial deadline is late
July) and C&E News in August. The Chair also contacts
the Department Chairpersons at the top 40 to 50 US academic
institutions, the chairs of the major ACS topical divisions,
and the chairs of ACS local sections to solicit nominations.
Nomination packages consisting of a
brief curriculum vitae for the nominee and a clear and concise
nomination letter outlining the “conspicuous achievements
in chemistry” on which the nomination is based should
be submitted electronically in pdf format to the Chair. Nomination
packages have a 4-year total life (2 nomination cycles).
Nominators who wish their unsuccessful nominee to be a candidate
for a second selection cycle should be advised that they
must submit a letter indicating their intent to re-nominate
the candidate a second time and submit a one-page update
describing the nominee’s activities in the two year
time period following the original nomination.
As new or updated nominations are received,
the Chair sends each nominator an acknowledgement of receipt
of the award nomination or update.
Awarding the Theodore William Richards Medal and Award.
The award of the Theodore William Richards Medal shall
be in charge of a special committee of seven members
-four elected by the membership of the Northeastern Section,
two appointed ACS members who are not members of the
Northeastern Section, and the Editor of the Journal of
the American Chemical Society.
The Committee on the Awarding of the Medal shall have
full power to choose the recipient and its choice shall
be final.
Sec. 6. The award of the Theodore William Richards Medal
shall be made for conspicuous achievement in chemistry.
The award shall be made not oftener than once every two
years, except under unusual conditions.
The recipient shall appear in person to receive the medal
and deliver an address or read a paper about his work.
Professor Tobin Jay Marks,
the Charles E. & Emma H. Morrison Professor of
Chemistry, Vladimir N. Ipatieff Professor of
Catalytic Chemistry, and Professor of Materials
Science and Engineering, at Northwestern University,
has been selected to receive the 2012 Theodore
William Richards Medal Award for “conspicuous
achievement in chemistry.”
The Richards Medal, first
presented in 1932, is awarded every two years
by the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical
Society. The award, which includes gold and silver
medals, will be presented to Professor Marks
on Thursday March 8, 2012 at Harvard University.
Marks’s research
activities have spanned the fields of inorganic
chemistry, organometallic chemistry, and materials
science, resulting in approximately 1030 publications
(h- index 116). His contributions have been diverse
and include the development of new catalytic
polymerization processes for polyolefins and
function- alized polyolefins, ring-opening Ziegler
polymerization, and silanolytic chain transfer,
as well as the exploitation of organo-f-element
catalysts to affect stereoselective hydro-functionalization,
the rational design of environmentally stable
organic n-type semiconductors and self-assembled
nanodielectrics for printed electronics, and
the use of volatile metal-organic precursors
to affect the rational growth of superconductor,
oxide dielectric, and transparent conducting
oxide thin films.
Prof. Marks was the recipient
of the National Medal of Science in 2005. He
is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences
and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He has mentored over 120 PhD students and nearly
as many postdoctoral fellows, with more than
110 currently holding tenure-line academic positions
worldwide.
