Awards and Honors

College of Chemistry awards and honors featured in the news.

Sung-Hou Kim named AAAS Fellow

November 27, 2018
by Theresa Duque | Berkeley Lab

Sung-Hou KimAAAS awarded 416 of its members the distinction of Fellow this year for “their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.” Among the new Fellows from Berkeley are Allen Goldstein (Energy Technologies Area), Sung-Hou Kim (Biosciences), Susannah Tringe (Biosciences) and Katherine Yelick (Computing Sciences.)

Chemistry Nobel goes to UC Berkeley Ph.D. Frances Arnold

October 3, 2018
by Robert Sanders, Media relations

Frances Arnold wins Nobel PrizeFrances H. Arnold, the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at Caltech, is one of three winners of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Richard Saykally to present BESE Distinguished Lecture at KAUST

November 16, 2018

Richard SaykallyRichard Saykally, Class of 1932 Endowed Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley, will present the BESE Distinguished Lecture on Probing Complex Interfaces at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology on November 19th.

Lecture...

Paul Alivisatos awarded the Wilhelm Exner medal

November 2, 2018

Paul Alivisatos

Paul Alivisatos, UC Berkeley's Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost and Samsung Distinguished Professor of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, has been awarded the 2018 Wilhelm Exner Medal for his pioneering research in nanoscience.

Richmond Sarpong receives the SSOCJ Mukaiyama award

November 1, 2018

Richmond Sarpong

Richmond Sarpong, Professor of Chemistry and Executive Associate Dean, has been recognized with the 2019 Mukaiyama award from the Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Japan (SSOCJ) along with Professor Shunsuke of Chiba Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The award is intended to recognize and encourage outstanding contributions to synthetic organic chemistry. Professor Sarpong will deliver an award lecture at the SSOCJ headquarters in Tokyo next year.

Alumna Frances Arnold is only the third Millennium Tech Prize winner to receive the Nobel Prize

October 26, 2018
by Technology Academy Finland

Frances Arnold receiving the Millennium Tech Prize

The 2016 Millennium Technology Prize winner Frances Arnold won the 2018 Nobel prize in chemistry and is now the third person to have won these two prestigious prizes. Professor Arnold, who is on the faculty at the California Institute of Technology, won the Nobel prize for her career-long work in directed evolution."

How is directed evolution changing the world?

October 30, 2018
Bethany Halford | C&E News | photo: Lance Hayashida/Caltech

How Frances Arnold changed the world

Life is a tornado, and I am a leaf,” Frances Arnold says. As the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering & Biochemistry at California Institute of Technology, Arnold’s schedule was already packed. Now she’s trying to figure out how to juggle her teaching responsibilities and the lectures she promised to give with writing her Nobel address, preparing for the trip to Stockholm, and tending to the massive influx of press interviews, invitations, congratulatory emails, and Twitter shout-outs that have come with winning the Nobel Prize.

Alumna Lucy Ziurys wins the 2019 Laboratory Astrophysics Prize

October 26, 2018
American Astronomical Society

Alumna Lucy Ziurys receives the 2019 Laboratory Astrophysics Prize

The Laboratory Astrophysics Division (LAD) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) is awarding its 2019 Laboratory Astrophysics Prize to Professor Lucy Ziurys (Ph.D. Chem, '84) of the University of Arizona for her outstanding contributions to rotational spectroscopy of transient molecules and radio astronomy.

Omar Yaghi wins BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Basic Sciences

January 23, 2018
BBVA Foundation

Omar YaghiThe BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Basic Sciences category goes, in this tenth edition, to Jordanian-American chemist Omar Yaghi, “for his pioneering work in the conception and synthesis of new...

Five distinguished individuals to be honored with highest American Cancer Society Award

October 17, 2018
PR Newswire

American Cancer Society LogoThe American Cancer Society will bestow its highest honor – the Medal of Honor – to five individuals on Oct. 18 in Washington DC. The Medal of Honor is awarded to distinguished individuals who have made valuable contributions in the fight against cancer. The 2018 recipients include the Honorable Joseph R. Biden Jr., for Cancer Control; Emmanuelle Charpentier, PhD, for Basic Research; Jennifer Doudna, PhD, for Basic Research; Charis Eng, MD, PhD, for Clinical Research; and Michael J. Thun MD, MS, for Cancer Control Science.