Theodore William Richards Medal
THE THEODORE WILLIAM RICHARDS MEDAL COMMITTEE
Soliciting Nominations
Committee Purpose and Membership
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.
Prior Recipients of the Theodore William Richards Medal for Conspicuous Achievement in Chemistry

2012 Richards Medal To be awarded to Tobin Jay Marks
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.
2010 Richards Medal Awarded to Richard N. Zare
Richard N. Zare, the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science at Stanford University received the 2010 Theodore William Richards (TWR) Medal for Conspicuous Achievement in Chemistry from the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society (NESACS). The Richards Medal, named for the first Nobel laureate in Chemistry from the United States, is the Section’s oldest and most prestigious award.
Professor Zare was honored for his development of sensitive optical techniques for chemical analysis. According to Dr. Roy Gordon, Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University and Chair of the Richards Medal Selection Committee, the Selection Committee recognized that Zare’s techniques “have been applied to many different disciplines, from studies of fundamental chemical reactions, to chemical analysis of compartments within a cell, to the chemical analysis of heterogeneous features in particulates and meteorites; spanning the disciplines of chemistry, biology, and astrophysics. In each case, his work inspires us to understand how the chemical analysis of nanoenvironments can reveal hidden worlds that inform us deeply about large questions – from the nature of life within a cell to the origin of the solar system as it relates to the composition of the interstellar medium. Through Zare’s pioneering and fundamental advances, the world of the ultra small is being opened for study by the scientific community.”
Professor Zare joined the Stanford University Department of Chemistry in 1977. Prior to joining Stanford University, Professor Zare was an assistant professor at MIT (1965), and a professor at the University of Colorado (1966) and Columbia University (1969). He earned a B. A. in chemistry and physics (1961) and a Ph. D. in chemical physics (1964), both from Harvard University. He is the recipient of multiple honors and awards for teaching and for his work in chemistry, including, most recently, the 2010 Priestley Medal, which was given by the American Chemical Society this spring.
Professor Zare received the Richards Medal Award during ceremonies at Harvard University on Thursday, March 4, 2010. The evening included dinner at the Harvard Faculty Club, followed by the award presentation and a lecture, entitled “Theodore W. Richards Redux: Determining Isotope Ratios without Mass Spectrometers,” given by Dr. Zare in the Pfizer Lecture Hall.