College of Chemistry

Professor Enrique Iglesia of the University of California at Berkeley is the recipient of the 2019 Michel Boudart Award for the Advancement of Catalysis. The award is presented jointly by the North American Catalysis Society and the European Federation of Catalysis Societies.

The 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.

The longstanding mystery of soot formation, which combustion scientists have been trying to explain for decades, appears to be finally solved, thanks to research led by scientists at Sandia National Laboratories. This groundbreaking work was published in 'Science' magazine with involvement from scientists at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley Lab.

In an underground lab in California, scientists have created a new hue called Quantum Blue. Fifth-year Ph.D. chemistry students Arunima Balan and Joseph Swabeck are on the trail to the blueset blue. Paul Alivisatos, Samsung distinguished professor of nanoscience and nanotechnology opened up his lab and assigned Balan and Swabeck to work on the fascinating problem of creating the new pigment color using quantum dot technology with artist Olga Alexopoulou.