February 26, 2003

Faculty honors

Three faculty members in the department of chemistry are recipients of major awards. They are Chad A. Mirkin, George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry; Richard P. Van Duyne, Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry; and Michael R. Wasielewski, professor and chair of chemistry.

The Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry, which recognizes an outstanding graduate student and his preceptor, was awarded to So-Jung Park and Mirkin by Malinckrodt Baker Inc. Mirkin has also received the 2003 Metzger-Conway Fellowship from Dickinson College, where he earned his undergraduate degree.

Mirkin directs the Institute for Nanotechnology. His research focuses on developing methods for controlling the architecture of molecules and materials on the 1-100 nanometer scale and the use of such structures to develop analytical tools for chemical and biological sensing, lithography, catalysis and optics. He has pioneered the use of biomolecules as synthons in materials science and the development of nanoparticle-based biodiagnostics.

The American Physical Society has awarded Van Duyne the 2004 Earle K. Plyler Prize for Molecular Spectroscopy for his “trail blazing contributions in the fields of surface enhanced Raman scattering and nanoparticle optics.” Van Duyne discovered surface-enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) in 1977. His current research interests include nanoparticle optics and its application to ultrasensitive chemical sensing and biological sensing, nanoparticle-based photonic devices, scanning probe microscopy, Raman spectroscopy of mass-selected clusters, and the application of SERS to ultrahigh vacuum surface science and studies of the structure and function of biomolecules adsorbed on surfaces.

Wasielewski has been named the recipient of the 2004 I-APS Photochemistry Award by the Inter-American Photochemical Society. The award recognizes achievements leading to the advancement of the photochemical and photophysical sciences.

Wasielewski conducts research on photoinduced electron transfer and charge transport in organic molecules and materials, self-assembly of nanoscale materials, the primary events in photosynthesis, the magnetic properties of radical ion pairs, ultrafast optical and magnetic resonance techniques, and materials for molecular electronics and spintronics.

Wendy L. Wall, professor of English, has received an honorable mention in the 34th annual James Russell Lowell Prize awards made by the Modern Language Association of America.

She was honored for her book “Staging Domesticity: Household Work and English Identity in Early Modern Drama.”

The Lowell prize is awarded annually for an outstanding book — a literary or linguistic study, a critical edition of an important work, or a critical biography — written by a member of the association.

The citation for Wall’s book said, “Through careful and original analysis of early modern cookbooks, housewifery manuals, and drama, Wendy Wall’s ‘Staging Domesticity’ powerfully argues the centrality of ‘the household’ in early modern England.