Leverhulme Medal (Royal Society)

Last updated
The premises of the Royal Society, which awards the medal Royal Society 20040420.jpg
The premises of the Royal Society, which awards the medal

The Leverhulme Medal is awarded by the Royal Society every three years "for an outstandingly significant contribution in the field of pure or applied chemistry or engineering, including chemical engineering". [1] It was created in 1960 after a donation by the Leverhulme Trust to mark the 300th anniversary of the foundation of the Royal Society, and is accompanied by a £2000 gift. Since its creation, it has been awarded 21 times, and unlike other Royal Society medals such as the Royal Medal, it has never been awarded to the same person multiple times. Citizens of the United Kingdom have won the medal 19 of the 21 times; the two foreign recipients have been Man Mohan Sharma, an Indian citizen who was awarded the medal in 1996 "for his work on the dynamics of multi-phase chemical reactions in industrial processes", and Frank Caruso, an Australian chemical engineer, awarded the medal in 2019. Two Leverhulme Medal winners have also won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Archer John Porter Martin, who won the medal in 1963 for "his distinguished and fundamental discoveries in chromatography and its application" and the Nobel Prize in 1952, [2] and Cyril Norman Hinshelwood, who won the medal in 1960 for "his outstanding contributions to physical chemistry" and the Nobel Prize in 1956. [2] Anne Neville became the first woman to receive the award in 2016. [3]

List of recipients

YearNameRationaleNotes
1960 Cyril Norman Hinshelwood "for his outstanding contributions to physical chemistry" [4]
1963 Archer John Porter Martin "for his distinguished and fundamental discoveries in chromatography and its application" [5]
1966 Alec Issigonis "for his distinguished contributions to the design of motor cars, particularly the Morris Minor and Austin and Morris Mini" [6]
1969 Hans Kronberger "for his many distinguished contributions to nuclear reactor research and development and for outstanding leadership in all branches of his field"
1972 John Adams "for his many distinguished work in development of particle accelerators, and plasma physics"
1975 Frank Rose "for his distinguished contributions to the application of chemical science to industry"
1978 Frederick Warner "for his outstanding work as consulting engineer both nationally and internationally in many branches of chemical engineering, particularly control of pollution" [7]
1981 Stanley Hooker "for his work on superchargers of the Merlin engines, the development of the first Rolls-Royce jet engines, then Bristol engines including that for the jump jet and, later, the final development of the Rolls-Royce RB211 engine"
1984 John Frank Davidson "for his distinguished contributions to chemical engineering, in particular the use of fluidised beds."
1987 George William Gray "for his many contributions to the technologically important field of liquid crystals" [8]
1990 Ray Freeman "for introducing new techniques in high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, particularly the development of two-dimensional Fourier transform methods" [9]
1993 John Rowlinson "distinguished for his contributions to thermodynamics, in particular to an understanding of the physical chemistry of gas–liquid interfaces and surfaces" [10]
1996 Man Mohan Sharma "for his work on the dynamics of multi-phase chemical reactions in industrial processes" [11]
1999 Jack Baldwin "in recognition of his distinguished contributions to the field of organic chemistry including his work on natural products synthesis and biosynthesis, particularly for his research in the b-lactam antibiotic field, initially contributing to biosynthetic problems which paved the way to the study of the enzymology of the process and eventually culminating in the determination of the crystal structure of isopenicillin N synthase" [12]
2002 Nicholas Handy "for his pioneering contributions to the development of the modern methodology of quantum chemistry, which has had an enormous impact on chemistry and molecular biology" [13]
2005 John Knott "for his distinguished contributions to the quantitative scientific understanding of fracture processes in metals and alloys and its engineering applications" [1]
2008 Anthony Cheetham "for the discovery and characterisation of novel materials exhibiting potential for catalysis and storage" [14]
2010 Martyn Poliakoff "for his outstanding contributions in the fields of Green Chemistry and supercritical fluids by the application of chemistry to advance chemical engineering processes" [3]
2013 Konstantin Novoselov "for revolutionary work on graphene, other two‐dimensional crystals and their heterostructures that has great potential for a number of applications, from electronics to energy." [3]
2016 Anne Neville "for revealing diverse physical and chemical processes at interacting interfaces, emphasising significant synergy between tribology and corrosion and in addition for exceptional research which has enhanced understanding of basic processes and addressed major industrial problems." [3]
2019 Frank Caruso "for driving the application of engineered particles in biology and medicine through nanoscale materials engineering" [3]
2022 Charlotte Williams "for her pioneering work developing and understanding high performance carbon dioxide utilization catalysts and implementable processes" [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roald Hoffmann</span> Nobel laureate theoretical chemist

Roald Hoffmann is a Polish-American theoretical chemist who won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He has also published plays and poetry. He is the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters Emeritus at Cornell University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linus Pauling</span> American scientist and activist (1901–1994)

Linus Carl Pauling was an American chemist, biochemist, chemical engineer, peace activist, author, and educator. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific topics. New Scientist called him one of the 20 greatest scientists of all time. For his scientific work, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954. For his peace activism, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. He is one of five people to have won more than one Nobel Prize. Of these, he is the only person to have been awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes, and one of two people to be awarded Nobel Prizes in different fields, the other being Marie Curie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rudolph A. Marcus</span> Canadian chemist

Rudolph Arthur Marcus is a Canadian-born American chemist who received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his contributions to the theory of electron transfer reactions in chemical systems". Marcus theory, named after him, provides a thermodynamic and kinetic framework for describing one electron outer-sphere electron transfer. He is a professor at Caltech, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikolay Semyonov</span> Soviet physical chemist

Nikolay Nikolayevich Semyonov , sometimes Semenov, Semionov or Semenoff was a Soviet physicist and chemist. Semyonov was awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the mechanism of chemical transformation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Man Mohan Sharma</span> Indian chemical engineer (born 1937)

Man Mohan Sharma, is an Indian chemical engineer. He was educated at Jodhpur, Mumbai, and Cambridge. At age 27, he was appointed Professor of Chemical Engineering in the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai. He later went on to become the Director of UDCT, the first chemical engineering professor to do so from UDCT.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Kohn</span> American physicist (1923–2016)

Walter Kohn was an Austrian-American theoretical physicist and theoretical chemist. He was awarded, with John Pople, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1998. The award recognized their contributions to the understandings of the electronic properties of materials. In particular, Kohn played the leading role in the development of density functional theory, which made it possible to calculate quantum mechanical electronic structure by equations involving the electronic density. This computational simplification led to more accurate calculations on complex systems as well as many new insights, and it has become an essential tool for materials science, condensed-phase physics, and the chemical physics of atoms and molecules.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Polanyi</span> Canadian chemist (born 1929)

John Charles Polanyi is a German-born Canadian chemist. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research in chemical kinetics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archer Martin</span> British chemist

Archer John Porter Martin was a British chemist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the invention of partition chromatography with Richard Synge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyril N. Hinshelwood</span> British Nobel laureate and chemist (1897-1967)

Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood was a British physical chemist and expert in chemical kinetics. His work in reaction mechanisms earned the 1956 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fraser Stoddart</span> Scottish chemist and 2016 Nobel Laureate

Sir James Fraser Stoddart is a British-American chemist who is Chair Professor in Chemistry at the University of Hong Kong. He has also been Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry and head of the Stoddart Mechanostereochemistry Group in the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University in the United States. He works in the area of supramolecular chemistry and nanotechnology. Stoddart has developed highly efficient syntheses of mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures such as molecular Borromean rings, catenanes and rotaxanes utilising molecular recognition and molecular self-assembly processes. He has demonstrated that these topologies can be employed as molecular switches. His group has even applied these structures in the fabrication of nanoelectronic devices and nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). His efforts have been recognized by numerous awards, including the 2007 King Faisal International Prize in Science. He shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Ben Feringa and Jean-Pierre Sauvage in 2016 for the design and synthesis of molecular machines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Davy Medal</span> Chemistry award given by the Royal Society

The Davy Medal is awarded by the Royal Society of London "for an outstandingly important recent discovery in any branch of chemistry". Named after Humphry Davy, the medal is awarded with a monetary gift, initially of £1000. Receiving the Davy Medal has been identified as a potential precursor to being awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, with 22 scientists as of 2022 having been awarded the medal prior to becoming Nobel laureates, according to an analysis by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Sir Rex Edward Richards was a British scientist and academic. He served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford and as a director of the Leverhulme Trust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carolyn Bertozzi</span> American chemist (born 1966)

Carolyn Ruth Bertozzi is an American chemist and Nobel laureate, known for her wide-ranging work spanning both chemistry and biology. She coined the term "bioorthogonal chemistry" for chemical reactions compatible with living systems. Her recent efforts include synthesis of chemical tools to study cell surface sugars called glycans and how they affect diseases such as cancer, inflammation, and viral infections like COVID-19. At Stanford University, she holds the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professorship in the School of Humanities and Sciences. Bertozzi is also an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and is the former director of the Molecular Foundry, a nanoscience research center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arieh Warshel</span> Israeli chemist, biochemist and biophysicist (born 1940)

Arieh Warshel is an Israeli-American biochemist and biophysicist. He is a pioneer in computational studies on functional properties of biological molecules, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and holds the Dana and David Dornsife Chair in Chemistry at the University of Southern California. He received the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with Michael Levitt and Martin Karplus for "the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chad Mirkin</span> American chemist

Chad Alexander Mirkin is an American chemist. He is the George B. Rathmann professor of chemistry, professor of medicine, professor of materials science and engineering, professor of biomedical engineering, and professor of chemical and biological engineering, and director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology and Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly at Northwestern University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nobel Prize in Chemistry</span> One of the five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Alfred Nobel

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine. This award is administered by the Nobel Foundation, and awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on proposal of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry which consists of five members elected by the Academy. The award is presented in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on 10 December, the anniversary of Nobel's death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Société chimique de France</span>

The Société Chimique de France (SCF) is a learned society and professional association founded in 1857 to represent the interests of French chemists in a variety of ways in local, national and international contexts. Until 2009 the organization was known as the Société Française de Chimie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford</span> Department of the University of Oxford

The Department of Chemistry is the chemistry department of the University of Oxford, England, which is part of the university's Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">G. D. Yadav</span> Indian chemical engineer (born 1952)

Ganapati Dadasaheb Yadav is an Indian chemical engineer, inventor and academic, known for his research on nanomaterials, gas absorption with chemical reaction and phase transfer catalysis. He served as the vice chancellor of the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai from 2009 until November 2019. He is currently the Emeritus Professor of Eminence at ICT Mumbai.

References

General

Specific

  1. 1 2 "The Leverhulme Medal (1960)". The Royal Society. Archived from the original on 9 June 2008. Retrieved 27 January 2009.
  2. 1 2 "All Nobel Laureates in Chemistry". The Nobel Prize Foundation. Archived from the original on 3 June 2016. Retrieved 28 January 2009.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Leverhulme Medal". The Royal Society. Archived from the original on 5 January 2018. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  4. "Sir Cyril Hinshelwood – Biography". Nobel Prize Foundation. Archived from the original on 27 December 2008. Retrieved 27 January 2009.
  5. "Archer J.P. Martin – Biography". Nobel Prize Foundation. Archived from the original on 12 February 2009. Retrieved 27 January 2009.
  6. The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile. Taylor & Francis. 2000. ISBN   9781579582937 . Retrieved 27 January 2009.
  7. "Papers and correspondence of Sir Frederick Warner". Mimas. Archived from the original on 29 June 2012. Retrieved 27 January 2009.
  8. "The Scientist: Royal Society Medals and Awards". The Scientist. Retrieved 27 January 2009.[ permanent dead link ]
  9. "Annual Report: Awards, Prizes and Appointments". Cambridge University. Archived from the original on 30 April 2003. Retrieved 27 January 2009.
  10. Sleeman, Elizabeth (2003). The International Who's Who 2004. Routledge. ISBN   9781857432176 . Retrieved 27 January 2009.
  11. "Prof. Man Mohan Sharma". University of Auckland. Archived from the original on 12 January 2009. Retrieved 27 January 2009.
  12. "Oxford University Gazette, Thursday 11 November 1999". Oxford University. 11 November 1999. Archived from the original on 10 June 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2009.
  13. "International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science – Members – Nicholas C. Hardy". International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science. Archived from the original on 20 August 2008. Retrieved 27 January 2009.
  14. "Functional Inorganics and Hybrid Materials: Anthony K. Cheetham resume". University of Cambridge. Archived from the original on 1 July 2010. Retrieved 27 January 2009.