Awards and Honors

College of Chemistry awards and honors featured in the news.

The importance of nurturing our undergraduate students

January 13, 2019
by Marge d'Wylde | College of Chemistry

Alexandra Brown receives Hertz Foundation FellowshipThe Fannie and John Hertz Foundation announced its new class of fellows for 2018 in the spring, naming alumna Alexandra Brown (B.S. Chem, ’17) one of ten newly minted graduate students as a recipient. As an undergraduate at Berkeley, Brown worked in the research group of Professor John Arnold studying titanium-aluminum heterobimetallics supported by bridging hydride ligands.

Professor John Hartwig awarded the 2019 Wolf Prize in Chemistry

January 16, 2019
by Marge d'Wylde | College of Chemistry

professors John Hartwig and Stephen Buchwal awarded 2019 Wolf PrizeIt was announced today that the 2019 Wolf Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to professors John F. Hartwig from University of California at Berkeley and Stephen L. Buchwald from MIT, for the development of efficient transition-metal catalysts that have revolutionized drug manufacturing, leading to breakthrough in molecule and synthetics design.

Daniel Nomura receives ASPIRE Award from The Mark Foundation

February 21, 2019
The Mark Foundation Press Release

Daniel NomuraThe Mark Foundation has announced $3.4 million in ASPIRE Awards to support high risk, high reward approaches to solving complex problems in cancer research. Associate Professor Daniel Nomura has received an ASPIRE award for his project Chemoproteomics-Enabled Covalent Ligand Discovery Platforms for Accessing Novel Druggable Modalities.

7 teams win funding in 1st year of Scialog: quantum matter and information

January 13, 2026
Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) Press Release
Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Hendrik Utzat, is one of 19 individual Scialog  award winners for 2025. Scialog is short for “science + dialog”, and was created in 2010 by RCSA (Research Corporation for Science Advancement).

Chemistry Nobel awarded for work on new materials that could help planet

October 8, 2025
by Georgina Rannard | BBC
(BBC) - The Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar M Yaghi for their work on metal-organic frameworks.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0r0l742kpjo

Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awarded to Architects of Metal-Organic Frameworks

October 8, 2025
By Alexa Robles-Gil and Ali Watkins | The New York Times
(NY Times) - The prize was awarded to Omar Yaghi, Susumu Kitagawa, and Richard Robson for the development of an architecture that some chemists compare with a molecular sponge.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/science/nobel-prize-chemistry.html

Molecular discovery that won Nobel Prize in chemistry is likened to ‘Harry Potter’ enchanted handbag

October 8, 2025
By Kostya Manenkov, Stefanie Dazio and Christina Larson | LA Times
(LA Times) - Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for their development of metal-organic frameworks that could eventually help reduce pollution and combat climate change. Photo courtesy of Atoco.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-10-08/molecular-discovery-that-w…

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."

A scientific pipeline to the Nobel Prize fueled by immigrants

December 10, 2025
By William J. Broad | NY Times
(NY TImes) As three immigrants claim Nobel Prizes in science for the United States this year, experts warn that immigration crackdowns could undo American innovation.

University of California sets world record with five Nobel Prizes in one week

October 10, 2025
By Aidin Vaziri, Staff Writer | SF Chronicle
(SF Chronicle) The University of California made history this week, as its faculty and alumni won five Nobel Prizes across medicine, physics and chemistry — the most ever awarded to a single institution in one year. Photo: ©Nobel Prize Outreach, Clément Morin.