Scientific Council

Sir John Meurig Thomas FRS is a leading British chemist and educator primarily known for his work on the design of new heterogeneous catalysis, solid-state chemistry, and surface and materials science. Sir John Meurig Thomas taught and researched (Bangor and Aberystwyth) for twenty years before taking up the Headship of Physical Chemistry, University of Cambridge in 1978. In 1986, he became Director of the Royal Institution (RI) of Great Britain where he occupied the Chair created for Michael Faraday. From 1993 to 2002, he was Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge. He is now Honorary Professor in Materials Science at Cambridge. His research work in solid-state chemistry and on the design of new catalysts has earned him numerous global awards, including the Linus Pauling Gold Medal for contributions to the advancement of science by Stanford University and the Willard Gibbs Gold Medal of the American Chemical Society. In 1999, he became the first recipient of the Amer. Chem. Soc. award for “creative research in homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis”. For his researches in geochemistry a new mineral, meurigite, was named in his honor. He was knighted in 1991 for services to chemistry and the popularization of science. Sir John Meurig Thomas earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry at Queen Mary College, London.

Prof. Robert H. Grubbs is currently the Victor and Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, where he has been a faculty member since 1978. The research group of Prof. Grubbs is involved in the design, synthesis, and mechanistic studies of complexes that catalyze basic organic transformations. The major focus of the group over the past few years has been on the olefin metathesis reaction using ruthenium-based catalysts, which have found wide applications in organic and polymer synthesis. He has 450+ publications and 90+ patents based on his research. Prof. Grubbs has received numerous professional fellowships and awards, including the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the 2003 Linus Pauling Award, and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in1989, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994, and the Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2006. He is also a founder or a member of the scientific advisory boards of numerous technology companies, including Cyrano Sciences, Pharmacopeia, Insert Therapeutics, and Symyx Technologies. Prof. Grubbs earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry with R. Breslow at Columbia University.

Prof. Galen D. Stucky is the E. Khashoggi Industries, LLC Professor in Letters and Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he has been a professor of chemistry and materials since 1985. Prior to joining the UCSB faculty, he held positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Sandia National Laboratory, and DuPont Central Research and Development. His research currently focuses on organic/inorganic interface chemistry including the molecular assembly of material systems with integrated nanoscale to macroscale functionalities; the use of inorganic species and surfaces to define biosystem processes; conversion of methane to chemicals and fuels; meso- and nanostructured photovoltaic and catalytic composite systems; and understanding Nature’s routes to organic/inorganic bioassembly. He has published more than 630 scientific papers and holds a dozen patents. Recent honors include a von Humboldt Senior US Scientist award (2000), the American Chemical Society Award in the Chemistry of Materials (2002), the International Mesostructured Materials Association Award (2004), and election to fellowship in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2005). He is also currently a Guest Professor at Fudan University in Shanghai and a Visiting Professor at Peking University in Beijing. Professor Stucky earned his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry with R. E. Rundle at Iowa State University.