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PHILADELPHIA, PA—23 February 2006—The American Institute of Chemists (AIC) has announced that Roald Hoffmann, Nobel laureate, poet, playwright, and tireless advocate of the wonders of science and the beauty of chemistry, will receive the 2006 AIC Gold Medal. The recipient of many awards and honors in a long and varied career, Hoffmann is currently the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters at Cornell University. Now in its 80th year, the AIC Gold Medal will be presented in an afternoon ceremony during Heritage Day on Thursday, 18 May 2006. Heritage Day is CHF’s annual celebration of achievement and promise in the chemical and molecular sciences.
“We are deeply honored to add the name Roald Hoffmann to the long list of brilliant men and women who have received the AIC Gold Medal during the past eight decades,” said Lawrence Duffy, AIC President. “His research earned chemistry’s greatest prize, and from this success he moved to share his understanding of the wonder of science with the public at large, through literature, through educational television and even on stage.”
About Roald Hoffmann
Hoffmann was born in 1937 in Złoczów, Poland. He came to the U.S. in 1949 and studied chemistry at Columbia University and earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1962. He has been a professor at Cornell since 1965. “Applied theoretical chemistry” is the way Hoffmann likes to characterize the particular blend of computations stimulated by experiment and the construction of generalized models, of frameworks for understanding, that is his contribution to chemistry.
Hoffmann’s two best-known collections of poetry, The Metamict State (1987) and Gaps and Verges (1990) were published by the University Presses of Florida. In 1993 the Smithsonian Institution Press published Chemistry Imagined. A unique collaboration of Hoffmann with artist Vivian Torrence, Chemistry Imagined reveals the creative and humanistic sparks of molecular science. In 1995, Columbia University Press published The Same and Not the Same, a thoughtful account of the dualities that lie under the surface of chemistry. This work has been translated into five languages and has won a number of awards.
In 1997 W.H. Freeman published Old Wine, New Flasks; Reflections on Science and Jewish Tradition, by Hoffmann and Shira Leibowitz Schmidt, a book of the intertwined voices of science and religion. The play Oxygen, written by Hoffmann and Carl Djerassi, premiered in the U.S. at the San Diego Repertory Theatre in 2001 and has since been produced at many theatres around the world. Hoffmann is the presenter of a television course, "The World of Chemistry", aired on many PBS stations and abroad.
About the AIC Gold Medal
First awarded by the AIC in 1926, the Gold Medal is the AIC’s highest award. It recognizes service to the science of chemistry and to the profession of chemist or chemical engineer in the United States. Previous winners include Nobel laureates Glenn T. Seaborg and Herbert C. Brown, as well as other renowned researchers and executives representing the many facets of the world of chemistry. Recent medalists include Alfred Bader, Arnold O. Beckman, Harry B. Gray, Ralph F. Hirschmann and Robert L. McNeil, Jr.
About the American Institute of Chemists
Founded in 1923, the American Institute of Chemists advances the chemical sciences by establishing high professional standards of practice and emphasizing the professional, ethical, economic, and social status of its members for the benefit of society as a whole. The AIC engages in a broad range of programs for professional enhancement through the prestigious Fellow membership category, an awards program, certification programs, and meetings.
About the Chemical Heritage Foundation
The Chemical Heritage Foundation serves the community of the chemical and molecular sciences, and the wider public, by treasuring the past, educating the present, and inspiring the future. CHF maintains a world-class collection of materials that document the history and heritage of the chemical and molecular sciences, technologies, and industries; encourages research in its collections; and carries out a program of outreach and interpretation in order to advance an understanding of the role of the chemical and molecular sciences, technologies, and industries in shaping society.
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