American Chemical Society President elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

WASHINGTON, April 28, 2010 — American Chemical Society (ACS) President Joseph S. Francisco, Ph.D., and at least 11 other ACS members have been elected Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Academy, a center for independent policy research, is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies. Its members include winners of the Nobel, Pulitzer and Shaw Prizes as well as MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellows.

“I am humbled by this election to the Academy’s Class of 2010, and am extraordinarily pleased that so many distinguished fellow members of the American Chemical Society share this honor with me,” Francisco said. “It is a wonderful acknowledgement of the contributions of chemistry to finding sustainable solutions to far-reaching societal challenges such as providing sufficient energy, protecting the environment, assuring the availability of safe food and water for all people, and improving global healthcare — in short, chemistry’s power to transform people’s lives.”

The ACS members in this year’s class of Academy Fellows join more than 200 other leaders in science, arts, business, the humanities and other fields elected to the institution in 2010. The new class will be inducted on Oct. 9 at the Academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.

In addition to being ACS President, Francisco is the William E. Moore Distinguished Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Science and Chemistry at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. He was selected for Academy membership for his research, which has “revolutionized our understanding of chemical processes in the atmosphere.” He has worked with chlorofluorocarbons, mapping the pathways of these and lesser-researched compounds to understand how they break down in the atmosphere. In 2008, Francisco and Marsha Lester of the University of Pennsylvania reported the discovery of an unusual molecule that is essential to the atmosphere’s ability to break down pollutants, solving a 40-year scientific mystery.

Other ACS members in the Academy’s 2010 Class of Fellows include:

• Frank S. Bates, Sc.D., Regents Professor and Department Head, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
• Sunney I. Chan, Ph.D., George Grant Hoag Professor of Biophysical Chemistry, Emeritus, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
• G. Marius Clore, M.D., Ph.D., Chief, Protein Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Section, Laboratory of Chemical Physics, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md.
• Robert Graham Cooks, Ph.D., Henry B. Hass Distinguished Professor of Analytical Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind.
• Samuel H. Gellman, Ph.D., Professor of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• William A. Goddard III, Ph.D., Charles and Mary Ferkel Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science and Applied Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
• Martin Gruebele, Ph.D., James R. Eiszner Endowed Chair in Chemistry, Professor of Physics and the Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• Kimberly A. Prather, Ph.D., Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry; Professor, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego.
• Alanna Schepartz, Ph.D., Milton Harris ’29 Ph.D., Professor of Chemistry, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
• James R. Williamson, Ph.D., Dean of Graduate Studies, Professor of Molecular Biology and Chemistry, Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, Calif.
• Yitzhak Apeloig*, Ph.D., Professor, Technion Chair in Chemistry, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa

* Elected Foreign Honorary Member

Established in 1780 by John Adams, John Hancock and other founders of the nation, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences undertakes studies of complex and emerging problems. Its membership of scholars and practitioners from many disciplines and professions gives it a unique capacity to conduct a wide range of interdisciplinary, long-term policy research. Past members have included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill. The current membership features more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.

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