EVANSTON, Ill. --- Samuel I. Stupp, Board of Trustees Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Chemistry and Medicine at Northwestern University, will receive an honorary doctorate from Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in The Netherlands April 24.

Stupp is being honored for his revolutionary research into soft matter and applications for complex molecular systems in biomedical technology. His findings are being used in areas such as regenerative medicine, cancer therapies and functional materials.

Stupp's honorary doctorate is expected to enhance the collaborative efforts already taking place between Northwestern and TU/e, including exchanges of doctoral candidates and research staff.

Bert Meijer, the TU/e professor who nominated Stupp, said, "Stupp's great strength lies in his ability to discover the interfaces between a range of disciplines, so that researchers in those disciplines feel truly motivated to help solve a particular scientific or technological problem."

Stupp is a recognized leader in the rapidly advancing fields of nanoscience and molecular self-assembly, the strategy used by biology to create highly ordered defect-free structures. He is director of Northwestern's Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine.

His strategies for developing nanostructured materials involve the synthesis of molecules programmed for self-assembly into functional materials of interest in widely varying fields, ranging from electronics to regenerative medicine. He is working on biomaterials for regenerative medicine, targeting the central nervous system, organ cell transplantation, heart muscle, bone and cartilage.

Stupp wants to obtain a better understanding of the relationship between structures on the nanoscale and the properties of a material at the macro-scale. Self-assembly and self-organization of large and small molecules are crucial to this.

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the American Physical Society, Stupp has received many awards and honors. They include the 2005 American Chemical Society Award in Polymer Chemistry, the Materials Research Society Medal in 2000, and the Humboldt Award for Senior U.S. Scientists. In 2005 Scientific American named him as one of 50 "Leaders Shaping the Future of Technology."

Stupp has published more than 250 scientific articles and has 30 patents in his name. He is a co-founder and chief scientific officer of the company Nanotope, Inc.