Paul Chirik Recipient of ACS Award in Organometallic Chemistry
Paul Chirik, the Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Chemistry, has been named the recipient of the 2027 American Chemical Society (ACS) Award in Organometallic Chemistry. This year’s national awardees, selected for outstanding achievements in chemistry, were announced this week by the ACS.
Chirik is a leading expert in the application of catalysis to challenges in sustainable chemistry. He called the award an “exceptional honor” for his lab.
The ACS recognized Chirik for his research in earth-abundant metal catalysis and his group’s mission to understand how the chemistry of iron, cobalt, and nickel can be controlled to promote important reactions in catalysis. This research feeds a host of applications ranging from drug discovery and synthesis to chemically recyclable plastic to new carbon-neutral fuels.
Paul Chirik, the Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Chemistry and Chair of the Department of Chemistry.
“I have been studying organometallic chemistry since my freshman year as an undergraduate and have continued in the field throughout graduate school and my 25-year independent career,” said Chirik, who is also the Chair of the Department of Chemistry. “To be honored by the ACS for our work in earth-abundant metal catalysis is an important recognition for all of the hard work that my students and postdocs have done over the years,” he said.
“Using less expensive and available metals may sound straightforward, but the organometallic chemistry that is needed ‘under the hood’ is actually complex and challenging to execute. An ACS National Award recognizes the efforts of many terrific early career scientists who have brought this to fruition.”
Chirik will be honored at an awards ceremony in conjunction with the ACS Spring 2027 meeting in New Orleans next March.
Chirik received his B.S. in Chemistry from Virginia Tech, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1995. He earned his Ph.D. under John Bercaw at the California Institute of Technology in 2000. He did his postdoctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and joined the faculty at Cornell University in 2001 before coming to Princeton in 2011.
Chirik won the Linus Pauling Medal in Chemistry in 2021; the Rylander Award in Catalysis in 2020; and the Gabor Somorjai Award for Creative Research in Catalysis in 2021. He also received one of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s first exploration-phase grants for research in green chemistry in 2022, and was named a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science that same year.