The William H. Nichols Medal is awarded annually for original research in chemistry. Nominees must have made a "significant and original contribution in any field of chemistry" during the five years preceding the presentation date. The medallist receives a gold medal, a bronze replica and a cash award. The award was established in 1902 by the New York Section of the

American Chemical Society 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 d ...

(ACS) through a gift from chemist and businessman

William H. Nichols William Henry Nichols (1852–1930) was an American chemist and businessman. He was instrumental in building the chemical supply business in the U.S. The specialty materials business of Honeywell traces its roots back a small sulfuric acid comp ...

. It was the first award to be approved by the ACS. The medal was first awarded in 1903.

Recipients

The award is given yearly and was first presented in 1903. * 1903 Edward B. Voorhees * 1904 (no award given) * 1905 Charles L. Parsons * 1906

Marston T. Bogert Marston Taylor Bogert (April 18, 1868 – March 21, 1954) was an American chemist. Biography He was born in Flushing, New York on April 18, 1868 and studied at the Flushing Institute, which was a well known private school, where he was a strai ...

* 1907 Howard B. Bishop * 1908

William Hultz Walker William Hultz Walker (April 7, 1869 – July 9, 1934) was an American chemist and professor. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and graduated in 1890 at Penn State College and took his Ph.D. at Göttingen (1892). In 1894 he accepted the cha ...

* 1909 H. H. C. P. Weber * 1909

William A. Noyes William Albert Noyes (November 6, 1857 – October 24, 1941) was an American analytical and organic chemist. He made pioneering determinations of atomic weights, chaired the Chemistry Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champ ...

* 1910 L. H. Baekeland * 1911 C. W. Easley * 1911 M. A. Rosanof * 1912 Charles James * 1913 (no award given) * 1914 Moses Gomberg * 1915

Irving Langmuir Irving Langmuir (; January 31, 1881 – August 16, 1957) was an American chemist, physicist, and engineer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1932 for his work in surface chemistry. Langmuir's most famous publication is the 1919 art ...

* 1916 Claude S. Hudson * 1917 (no award given) * 1918

Treat Baldwin Johnson Treat Baldwin Johnson (29 March 1875 – 28 July 1947) was an American organic chemist and Sterling Professor at Yale University from 1928–1943. Early life and education Treat Baldwin Johnson was born in Bethany, Connecticut, on 29 March 1875, ...

* 1919 (no award given) * 1920

* 1921

Gilbert N. Lewis Gilbert Newton Lewis (October 23 or October 25, 1875 – March 23, 1946) was an American physical chemist and a Dean of the College of Chemistry at University of California, Berkeley. Lewis was best known for his discovery of the covalent bond a ...

* 1922 (no award given) * 1923 Thomas Midgely, Jr. * 1924 Charles A. Kraus * 1925 Edward Curtis Franklin * 1926 S. C. Lind * 1927

Roger Adams Roger Adams (January 2, 1889 – July 6, 1971) was an American organic chemist who developed the eponymous Adams' catalyst, and helped determine the composition of natural substances such as complex vegetable oils and plant alkaloids. He isolat ...

* 1928

Hugh S. Taylor Sir Hugh Stott Taylor (6 February 1890 – 17 April 1974) was an English chemist primarily interested in catalysis.Who Was Who, Published by A&C Black Limited In 1925, in a landmark contribution to catalytic theory, Taylor suggested that a cat ...

* 1929 William L. Evans * 1930 * 1931 John A. Wilson * 1932

James B. Conant James Bryant Conant (March 26, 1893 – February 11, 1978) was an American chemist, a transformative President of Harvard University, and the first U.S. Ambassador to West Germany. Conant obtained a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard in 1916. ...

* 1933 (no award given) * 1934 Henry C. Sherman * 1935 Julius A. Nieuwland * 1936 William M. Clark * 1937

Frank C. Whitmore Frank Clifford Whitmore (October 1, 1887 – June 24, 1947), nicknamed "Rocky", was a prominent chemist who submitted significant evidence for the existence of carbocation mechanisms in organic chemistry. He was born in 1887 in the town of North ...

* 1938 P. A. Levene * 1939

Joel H. Hildebrand Joel Henry Hildebrand (November 16, 1881 – April 30, 1983) was an American educator and a pioneer chemist. He was a major figure in physical chemistry research specializing in liquids and nonelectrolyte solutions. Education and professors ...

* 1940

John M. Nelson John Mandt Nelson (October 10, 1870 – January 29, 1955) was a U.S. Representative from Wisconsin. Early life John Mandt Nelson was born on October 10, 1870, in Burke, Wisconsin. Nelson attended the public schools and graduated from the Unive ...

* 1941

Linus Pauling Linus Carl Pauling (; February 28, 1901August 19, 1994) 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 top ...

* 1942 Duncan A. MacInnes * 1943 * 1944

Carl S. Marvel Carl Shipp "Speed" Marvel (September 11, 1894 – January 4, 1988) was an American chemist who specialized in polymer chemistry. He made important contributions to U.S. synthetic rubber program during World War II, and later worked at developing ...

* 1945 Vincent du Vigneaud * 1946

Wendell M. Stanley Wendell Meredith Stanley (16 August 1904 – 15 June 1971) was an American biochemist, virologist and Nobel laureate. Biography Stanley was born in Ridgeville, Indiana, and earned a BSc in Chemistry at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. H ...

* 1947 George B. Kistiakowski * 1948

Glenn T. Seaborg Glenn Theodore Seaborg (; April 19, 1912February 25, 1999) was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work in ...

* 1949 I. M. Kolthoff * 1950 * 1951 Henry Eyring * 1952 Frank H. Spedding * 1953

Reynold C. Fuson Reynold Clayton Fuson (June 1, 1895 – August 4, 1979) was an American chemist. Biography Born in Wakefield, Illinois, Fuson attended Central Normal College in Danville, Indiana, where after one year in 1914 he was certified as a teacher. He ...

* 1954 Charles P. Smyth * 1955 Wendell M. Latimer * 1956 Robert Burns Woodward * 1957 Louis P. Hammett * 1958

Melvin Calvin Melvin Ellis Calvin (April 8, 1912 – January 8, 1997) was an American biochemist known for discovering the Calvin cycle along with Andrew Benson and James Bassham, for which he was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He spent most of hi ...

* 1959

Herbert C. Brown Herbert Charles Brown (May 22, 1912 – December 19, 2004) was an American chemist and recipient of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work with organoboranes. Life and career Brown was born Herbert Brovarnik in London, to Ukrainian Jewis ...

* 1960

Herman F. Mark Herman Francis Mark (May 3, 1895, Vienna – April 6, 1992, Austin, Texas) was an Austrian-American chemist regarded for his contributions to the development of polymer science. Mark's x-ray diffraction work on the molecular structure of fibers p ...

* 1961

Peter J. W. Debye Peter Joseph William Debye (; ; March 24, 1884 – November 2, 1966) was a Dutch-American physicist and physical chemist, and Nobel laureate in Chemistry. Biography Early life Born Petrus Josephus Wilhelmus Debije in Maastricht, Netherlands, D ...

* 1962 Paul J. Flory * 1963

Louis F. Fieser Louis Frederick Fieser (April 7, 1899 – July 25, 1977) was an American organic chemist, professor, and in 1968, professor emeritus at Harvard University. He is known for inventing military effective napalm whilst he worked at Harvard in 194 ...

* 1964

Arthur C. Cope Arthur C. Cope (June 27, 1909 – June 4, 1966) was an American organic chemist and member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. He is credited with the development of several important chemical reactions which bear his name includin ...

* 1965 Herbert E. Carter * 1966 Frederick D. Rossini * 1967

Karl Folkers Karl August Folkers (September 1, 1906 – December 7, 1997) was an American biochemist who made major contributions to the isolation and identification of bioactive natural products. Career Folkers graduated from the College of Liberal Arts a ...

* 1968 William S. Johnson * 1969 Marshall Nirenberg * 1970 Britton Chance * 1971

Henry Taube Henry Taube, (November 30, 1915 – November 16, 2005) was a Canadian-born American chemist who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "his work in the mechanisms of electron-transfer reactions, especially in metal complexes." He ...

* 1972

John D. Roberts John Dombrowski Roberts (June 8, 1918 – October 29, 2016) was an American chemist. He made contributions to the integration of physical chemistry, spectroscopy, and organic chemistry for the understanding of chemical reaction rates. Another ...

* 1973 R. Bruce Merrifield * 1974

Harold A. Scheraga Harold Abraham Scheraga (October 18, 1921 – August 1, 2020) was an American biophysicist and the George W. and Grace L. Todd Professor Emeritus in the chemistry department at Cornell University. Scheraga is regarded as a pioneer in protein b ...

* 1975

F. Albert Cotton Frank Albert Cotton FRS (April 9, 1930 – February 20, 2007) was an American chemist. He was the W.T. Doherty-Welch Foundation Chair and Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Texas A&M University. He authored over 1600 scientific articles. C ...

* 1976 Paul D. Bartlett * 1977

Elias J. Corey Elias James Corey (born July 12, 1928) is an American organic chemist. In 1990, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his development of the theory and methodology of organic synthesis", specifically retrosynthetic analysis. Regarded by many ...

* 1978 * 1979 Choh Hao Li * 1980 Gilbert Stork * 1981 Roald Hoffmann * 1982

Frank H. Westheimer Frank Henry Westheimer NAS ForMemRS APS (January 15, 1912 – April 14, 2007) was an American chemist. He taught at the University of Chicago from 1936 to 1954, and at Harvard University from 1953 to 1983, becoming the Morris Loeb Professor of ...

* 1983 Neil Bartlett * 1984 Fred W. McLafferty * 1985

Jerome A. Berson Jerome A. Berson (May 10, 1924 – January 13, 2017) was an American chemist who was a Sterling Professor at Yale University, and also a published author. He worked on sigmatropic rearrangements, thermal and carbocationic rearrangements, and ...

* 1986

Michael J. S. Dewar Michael James Steuart Dewar (24 September 1918 – 10 October 1997) was an American theoretical chemist. Education and early life Dewar was the son of Scottish parents, Annie Balfour (Keith) and Francis Dewar. He received the degrees of Bache ...

* 1987

Kurt Mislow Kurt Martin Mislow (June 5, 1923 – October 5, 2017) was a German-born American organic chemist who specialized in stereochemistry. Born in Berlin on June 5, 1923, Mislow had moved to London by 1938, after some time in Milan. With the help of h ...

* 1988

Ralph F. Hirschmann Ralph Franz Hirschmann (May 6, 1922 – June 20, 2009) was a German American chemist who led a team that was responsible for the first organic synthesis of an enzyme, a ribonuclease. Early life and education Born on May 6, 1922, in Fürth, h ...

* 1989

Ronald Breslow Ronald Charles David Breslow (March 14, 1931 – October 25, 2017) was an American chemist from Rahway, New Jersey. He was University Professor at Columbia University, where he was based in the Department of Chemistry and affiliated with the De ...

* 1990

John D. Baldeschwieler John D. Baldeschwieler (born 1933) is an American chemist who has made significant contributions in molecular structure and spectroscopy. Born on November 14, 1933, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, he was an alumnus of Cornell University (B.S., 1956, C ...

* 1991

J. Calvin Giddings John Calvin Giddings (September 26, 1930 – October 24, 1996) was a professor of chemistry specialist of chromatography and separation techniques at the University of Utah. Obituary by Marcus Myers, ''Chromatographia 43'', (11-12), 583, 1996 He ...

* 1992

Koji Nakanishi was a Japanese chemist who studied bioorganic chemistry and natural products. He served as Centennial Professor of Chemistry and chair of the Chemistry Department at Columbia University. Early life Nakanishi was born in Hong Kong on May 11, 192 ...

* 1993

Richard E. Smalley Richard Errett Smalley (June 6, 1943 – October 28, 2005) was an American chemist who was the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry, Physics, and Astronomy at Rice University. In 1996, along with Robert Curl, also a professor of c ...

* 1994 Peter B. Dervan * 1995

Stephen J. Lippard Stephen James Lippard (born October 12, 1940) is the Arthur Amos Noyes Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is considered one of the founders of bioinorganic chemistry, studying the interactions of ...

* 1996

K. C. Nicolaou Kyriacos Costa Nicolaou ( el, Κυριάκος Κ. Νικολάου; born July 5, 1946) is a Cypriot-American chemist known for his research in the area of natural products total synthesis. He is currently Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor of ...

* 1997

Jacqueline K. Barton Jacqueline K. Barton (born May 7, 1952 New York City, NY), 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. ...

* 1998

Ahmed H. Zewail Ahmed Hassan Zewail ( ar, أحمد حسن زويل, ; February 26, 1946 – August 2, 2016) was an Egyptian-American chemist, known as the "father of femtochemistry". He was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on femtochemistry ...

* 1999

Samuel J. Danishefsky Samuel J. Danishefsky (born March 10, 1936) is an American chemist working as a professor at both Columbia University and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Birth and education Samuel J. Danishefsky was born in 1936 in ...

* 2000 Barry M. Trost * 2001

Stuart L. Schreiber Stuart L. Schreiber (born 6 February 1956) is a scientist at Harvard University and co-Founder of the Broad Institute. He has been active in chemical biology, especially the use of small molecules as probes of biology and medicine. Small molecul ...

* 2002

Alan G. MacDiarmid Alan Graham MacDiarmid, Order of New Zealand, ONZ Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (14 April 1927 – 7 February 2007) was a New Zealand-born Americans, American chemist, and one of three recipients of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2000. Ear ...

* 2003 Harry Gray * 2004

Allen J. Bard Allen Joseph Bard (born December 18, 1933) is an American chemist. He is the Hackerman-Welch Regents Chair Professor and director of the Center for Electrochemistry at the University of Texas at Austin. Bard is considered a "father of modern ele ...

* 2005

Richard N. Zare Richard Neil Zare (born November 19, 1939, in Cleveland, Ohio) is the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science and a Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University. Throughout his career, Zare has made a considerable impact in physic ...

* 2006

K. Barry Sharpless Karl Barry Sharpless (born April 28, 1941) is an American chemist and a two-time Nobel laureate in Chemistry known for his work on stereoselective reactions and click chemistry. Sharpless was awarded half of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry " ...

* 2007 Nicholas J. Turro * 2008 Nadrian C. Seeman * 2009 Carolyn R. Bertozzi * 2010

Tobin J. Marks Tobin Jay Marks (born November 25, 1944) is 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 Northw ...

* 2011

Julius Rebek Julius Rebek Jr. (born Gyula Rebek on April 11, 1944) is a Hungarian-American chemist and expert on molecular self-assembly. Rebek was born in Beregszász (present-day Berehove, Ukraine), which at the time was part of Hungary, in 1944 and live ...

, Jr. * 2012 Alan G. Marshall * 2013 Richard Eisenberg * 2014 Amos B. Smith, III * 2015 Gabor A. Somorjai * 2016 Stephen L. Buchwald * 2017

Chad Mirkin Chad Alexander Mirkin (born November 23, 1963) 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 profess ...

* 2018 Debra R. Rolison * 2019 Vicki Grassian * 2020 Krzysztof Matyjaszewski * 2021 (No award given)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nichols Medal, William H. Awards of the American Chemical Society

Recipients

See also

References