Honors & Awards
Helen Quinn
Three Stanford chemists and a former graduate student received awards from the American Chemical Society at its spring 2009 national meeting in Salt Lake City. A fourth chemist will receive an award at the fall 2009 national meeting in Washington, D.C.
JAMES COLLMAN, the George A. and Hilda M. Daubert Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus, received the Ronald Breslow Award for Achievement in Biomimetic Chemistry. He was cited for having "made major contributions to the understanding of the mechanisms of biological proteins." The award consists of $5,000, a certificate and travel expenses to the society's spring meeting.
THOMAS J. WANDLESS, an associate professor of chemical and systems biology, and his former graduate student LAURA A. BANASZYNSKI were awarded the Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry. The award recognizes "an outstanding graduate student and her or his preceptor(s) in the field of chemistry." Both awardees received $3,000, a plaque and travel expenses to the spring meeting.
ROBERT M. WAYMOUTH, the Robert Eckles Swain Professor in Chemistry, shared the Cooperative Research Award in Polymer Science and Engineering from the society's Division of Polymeric Materials. Waymouth and his co-winner, James L. Hedrick of IBM Almaden Research Center, were cited for their "highly productive and creative collaborative efforts on the development of new catalysts for polymer synthesis." They shared $3,000 and each received a plaque and travel expenses to the spring meeting.
CHAITAN KHOSLA, the Wells H. Rauser and Harold M. Petiprin Professor in the School of Engineering, has been chosen to receive one of 10 annual Arthur C. Cope Scholar Awards. The award recognizes and encourages excellence in inorganic chemistry. In announcing the award, the society quoted Stanford chemist Paul Wender, who said, "Khosla has had a profound impact in chemistry, pioneering the emergence of the field of engineered biosynthesis and its application to the practical synthesis of natural and non-natural products, including many drugs, therapeutic leads and biological probes." Khosla has described his research interests as lying at the interface of chemistry and medicine. Khosla will receive $5,000, a certificate and a $40,000 research grant. His travel expenses to the society's fall 2009 national meeting also will be paid.
HELEN QUINN, professor of particle physics and astrophysics at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, will be honored as a leading woman in science during the Exploratorium's annual meeting in San Francisco on May 18. Quinn and four other women (including Google Vice President MARISSA MAYER, an alumna who has taught computer programming classes to Stanford students) were cited for paving the way for future female scientists while making an indelible mark in their own fields. Quinn received the Dirac Medal of the International Center for Theoretical Physics for her pioneering contributions to the quest for a unified theory of quarks and leptons and of the strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions. She studies the imbalance of matter and anti-matter in the universe as well as working on the science curriculum for California schools.
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