February 6, 2003

Faculty honors

Richard B. Silverman, professor of chemistry and of biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology and Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence, has been selected to receive a 2003 Arthur C. Cope Senior Scholar Award by the American Chemical Society.

The award recognizes outstanding research in the field of organic chemistry
An expert in medicinal and bioorganic chemistry, Silverman investigates the molecular mechanism of action, rational design, and synthesis of medicinal agents and the mechanisms of enzymes. His group is studying drugs which function as specific irreversible inactivators of particular enzymes, especially enzymes involved in several neurological diseases, convulsions, neurotoxicity and stroke.

Silverman’s research has been supported by numerous grants from the National Insti-tutes of Health. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Chemists and the American Association for the Advance-ment of Science.

Frederick D. Lewis, professor of chemistry, has been selected by the Inter-American Photo-chemical Society to receive its 2003 I-APS Award in Photochemistry.

The award is presented annually in recognition of contributions to photochemical science during the previous decade.

Lewis has done significant work in the field of organic photochemistry, especially the study of unimolecular reactions and electron transfer processes in organic molecules and in DNA. The objective of his research is to determine how molecular structure and environment affect photochemical reactivity.

A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Lewis has served as president of the I-APS and as a trustee of the International Foundation of Photochemistry. He has been an associate editor of several journals, including the Journal of the American Chemical Society, and the organizer of major conferences in the photochemical field.

Lewis has been a recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship and was the first Northwestern faculty member to receive a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award.

Kenneth R. Shull, associate professor of materials science and engineering, has been named a fellow of the American Physical Society.

Shull conducts research on the surface and interfacial structure of polymeric materials, with an emphasis on polymer adhesion and on polymer/metal nanocomposite systems.

His work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Petroleum Research Fund.
A member of the faculty since 1993, Shull has held a Morris Fine Junior Professorship and an NSF Young Investigator Award.

He was materials science and engineering teacher of the year in 1995 and McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science Advisor of the Year in 1998.

He has held visiting scientist appointments at the Ecole Superieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles in Paris and at the University of Sheffield, England.