Formation | 1894 |
---|---|
Type | Nonprofit organization |
Headquarters | Philadelphia, PA |
Location |
|
Official language | English |
Chair | Frank Bozich |
Website | https://sci-america.org/ |
The Society of Chemical Industry (America Section) or SCI America is an independent learned society inspired by the creation of the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) in London in 1881. Originally known as the New York Section, it was formed in 1894 and officially renamed the America Section in 1919. The main activity of the America Section is the awarding of several prizes in chemistry: the Perkin Medal, the Chemical Industry Medal and the Gordon E. Moore Medal. The America Section also works with the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) to support underserved and Black scholars in chemistry and chemical engineering.
The creation of the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) in London in 1881 led to the eventual formation of a number of satellite groups. A number of informal meetings were held in 1894, with the goal of organizing a New York section of the Society of Chemical Industry. On May 2, 1894, analytical chemist Arthur McGeorge met with seven other members of London's Society of Chemical Industry who were active in New York. At a second meeting, with Alfred H. Mason as chairman and McGeorge as secretary, it was decided to invite all New York-based members of the London society to an organizational meeting. At this third meeting, at the College of Pharmacy, 36 members of the Society of Chemical Industry signed a petition requesting the London organization to form a New York section, the first section to be created overseas. Their proposal was enthusiastically received by London president E. C. C. Stanford, who wrote "We are pleased to add the stars and stripes to our highly respectable old colours." [1] : 9 [2]
The first official meeting of the new New York Section was held in November 1894. The new section had a membership of 350 members, about one-tenth of the entire organization. [1] : 9 The London group's president Thomas Tyrer and foreign secretary Ludwig Mond attended the October 1895 fall meeting in New York, which was rescheduled so that they could participate. [3]
In contrast to the American Chemical Society, which required its members to hold university degrees, the Society of Chemical Industry was open to a broad range of working chemists in industry, manufacturing and pharmaceuticals. Mason emphasized that the new organization did not intend to compete with the ACS, but rather to bring together academic and manufacturing chemists:
We believe there is room for our Society in America... the industrial applications of chemistry have become so numerous that the existence of a separate body to especially consider this branch is desirable." – Arthur Mason [1] : 9
Members of the America section benefited from the activities of the parent society, which held scientific conferences and published The Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry to inform chemists throughout the world about development in the field. [1] : 8 From the beginning, the America Section's focus was networking, engaging its members in collegial activities. The second chairman, Charles F. Chandler, said "It serves to bring us together, to make us acquainted, and it enables us to help each other." [1] : 11 Members of the New York section helped to establish The Chemists' Club in New York City in 1898, using it for lectures and meetings, and establishing a members' library. [1] : 12 In the beginning, talks were presented at the monthly meetings and published in the parent journal. Guest speakers included important international figures like Leo Baekeland, Carl Duisberg, and Jōkichi Takamine. [1] : 11 In 1904, the New York Section hosted the first annual meeting of its parent organization to be held in the United States. [4] [1] : 12
The New York section was briefly involved in practical work on standardization in 1902–03, when they established a Subcommittee on Uniformity of Analysis of Materials. Two samples of Portland cement were analyzed by 14 chemists, and 3 samples of zinc ore were analyzed by 42 chemists. The results were critiqued by William Francis Hillebrand, who became chief chemist at the National Bureau of Standards. The committee dissolved and was replaced in 1904 by a new committee formed by the ACS. [5] The American section also engaged in early lobbying efforts, as in 1907, when they passed a resolution protesting that Rules and Regulations published by the Department of Agriculture displayed a "lack of expert knowledge." [6] However, such activities never became a major focus of the organization. [1] : 12
In 1919, the New York group was renamed the America Section. [7]
The Society of Chemical Industry (America Section) is a registered nonprofit organization, with administrative offices in Philadelphia, PA. [8] SCI America is directed by a set of officers including a chair and vice-chair, and an executive committee. Frank Bozich, President and Chief Executive Officer of Trinseo, serves as the current chair. Previous chairpersons include John Paro of Hallstar, Max Tishler, Ralph Landau, Harold Sorgenti, Charles O. Holliday, [1] : 91–92 and Christopher D. Pappas. [9] Resa Thomason serves as the Executive Director.
The major activities of SCI America are two yearly events for the presentation of awards. SCI America presents the Perkin Medal (established 1906), [10] the Chemical Industry Medal, [11] first awarded 1933 [12] ), and the Gordon E. Moore Medal (first awarded 2004). [13] [14]
The first Perkin Medal was awarded to chemist William Henry Perkin to mark the 50th anniversary of his discovery of the aniline dye mauveine. This anniversary was celebrated internationally as the Perkin Jubilee. SCI America commemorated a visit by Perkin and his family to the United States in the fall of 1906 by inviting 400 guests to a dinner in his honor at Delmonico's and presenting him with the first Perkin Medal. [15] [16] [17] The Perkin Medal is considered the highest honor in applied chemistry to be given to a chemist residing in the United States. [18] It is administered jointly by a committee whose representatives include the chairs or presidents of the ACS, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the Science History Institute, and SCI America. [1] : 14
From 1920 to 1932, SCI America awarded the Grasselli Medal, on behalf of the Grasselli Chemical Company, for a paper presenting the most useful suggestions in applied chemistry before the Society. [19] [20] [21] This award was replaced in 1933 by the Chemical Industry Medal, which was given to a person who had made a valuable contribution by applying chemical research in industry. [11]
Since 2004 SCI America has awarded a medal in honor of Gordon E. Moore, for early-career innovation involving the application of chemistry. [14]
SCI America also works with the ACS and the AIChE to support scholars in chemistry and chemical engineering. [22] [23]
Gordon Earle Moore was an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and emeritus chairman of Intel Corporation. He proposed Moore's law which makes the observation that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years.
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all degree levels and in all fields of chemistry, chemical engineering, and related fields. It is one of the world's largest scientific societies by membership. The ACS is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and holds a congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code. Its headquarters are located in Washington, D.C., and it has a large concentration of staff in Columbus, Ohio.
Jacqueline K. Barton, is an American chemist. She worked as a professor of chemistry at Hunter College (1980–82), and at Columbia University (1983–89) before joining the California Institute of Technology. In 1997 she became the Arthur and Marian Hanisch Memorial Professor of Chemistry and from 2009 to 2019, the Norman Davidson Leadership Chair of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Caltech. She currently is the John G. Kirkwood and Arthur A. Noyes Professor of Chemistry, Emerita.
The Perkin Medal is an award given annually by the Society of Chemical Industry to a scientist residing in America for an "innovation in applied chemistry resulting in outstanding commercial development." It is considered the highest honor given in the US chemical industry.
The Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) is a learned society set up in 1881 "to further the application of chemistry and related sciences for the public benefit".
Warren Kendall Lewis was an MIT professor who has been called the father of modern chemical engineering. He co-authored an early major textbook on the subject which essentially introduced the concept of unit operations. He also co-developed the Houdry process under contract to The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey into modern fluid catalytic cracking with Edwin R. Gilliland, another MIT professor.
Tobin Jay Marks is an inorganic chemistry Professor, the Vladimir N. Ipatieff Professor of Catalytic Chemistry, Professor of Material Science and Engineering, Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Professor of Applied Physics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Among the themes of his research are synthetic organo-f-element and early-transition metal organometallic chemistry, polymer chemistry, materials chemistry, homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, molecule-based photonic materials, superconductivity, metal-organic chemical vapor deposition, and biological aspects of transition metal chemistry.
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.
The Science History Institute is an institution that preserves and promotes understanding of the history of science. Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it includes a library, museum, archive, research center and conference center.
Cynthia "Cyndie" Anne Maryanoff is an American organic and materials chemist. Among other awards, she received the 2015 Perkin Medal for outstanding work in applied chemistry in the U.S.A.
Martin Hill Ittner was a chemist working for Colgate, now known as Colgate-Palmolive. He is best known for his contributions to applied chemistry, including the development of toothpaste and detergent.
John Charles Warner is an American chemist, educator, and entrepreneur, best known as one of the founders of the field of green chemistry. Warner worked in industry for nearly a decade as a researcher at Polaroid Corporation, before moving to academia where he worked in various positions at University of Massachusetts Boston and Lowell. Warner is co-founder, President, and Chief Technology Officer at the Warner-Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry, as well as co-founder and President of Beyond Benign. He is the recipient of the 2014 Perkin Medal, widely acknowledged as the highest honor in American industrial chemistry.
Elsa Reichmanis is an American chemist, who was the 2003 president of the American Chemical Society. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1995 for the discovery, development, and engineering leadership of new families of lithographic materials and processes that enable VLSI manufacturing. She was also inducted into the National Academy of Inventors in 2020. She is currently the Anderson Endowed Chair in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Lehigh University. She previously served on the faculty at The Georgia Institute of Technology. Reichmanis is noted for her research into microlithography, and is credited for contributing to the "development of a fundamental molecular level understanding of how chemical structure affects materials function leading to new families of lithographic materials and processes that may enable advanced VLSI manufacturing".
The Winthrop-Sears Medal is awarded annually by The Chemists' Club of New York in conjunction with the Science History Institute to recognize entrepreneurial achievement in the chemical industry for the betterment of humanity.
Robert W. Cairns (1909-1985) was an American chemist who worked at Hercules and at the U.S. Department of Commerce. He contributed to World War II technological advances in explosives.
Arnold Thackray is an emeritus professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Initially an English chemist, he became an entrepreneurial American. Thackray founded or extended a series of institutions, initially in Philadelphia, then on a wider scale within the History of Science Society (HSS) and through Science History Consultants, and the Life Sciences Foundation.
The Société de Chimie Industrielle is an independent learned society inspired by the creation of the Société de Chimie Industrielle in Paris in 1917. The American Section was formed on January 18, 1918, and held its first meeting on April 4, 1918.
Melinda H. Keefe is a research and development director at the Dow Chemical Company, where she works on architectural coatings. She helped to develop the award-winning Evoque pre-composite polymer platform, reducing TiO
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Ann E. Weber is the senior vice president for drug discovery at Kallyope Inc. in New York City. She previously worked with Merck Research Laboratories (MRL), joining the company in 1987 and retiring from the position of vice president for lead optimization chemistry in 2015. She has helped develop more than 40 drug candidates including FDA-approved treatments for Type 2 diabetes. She has received a number of awards, including the Perkin Medal (2017) and has been inducted into the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry’s MEDI Hall of Fame.
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