Foundation News

Matthew Tirrell Joins Dreyfus Board, Named Founding Director of Chicago Institute of Molecular Engineering

Dr. Matthew Tirrell was elected a Member of the Board of Directors at the Foundation's 2011 annual meeting. Tirrell is currently chair of the Bioengineering Department at University of California, Berkeley, and had previously served as an Advisor to the Foundation since 2000. 

On July 1, 2011, Tirrell will join the University of Chicago as founding director of the new Institute of Molecular Engineering. "This is going to be directed toward creating an institute that attacks societal problems from a technological viewpoint, not narrowly based on one scientific discipline," Tirrell said in a statement. "Many important societal problems in energy, health care, or the environment can be addressed by new molecular-level science."

Related link: University of Chicago Press release, with video

 

Morel Receives ACS Award in Environmental Science & Technology

Francois M. M. Morel, the Albert G. Blanke, Jr., Professor of Geosciences at Princeton University, has been named the recipient of the 2011 ACS Award for Creative Advances in Environmental Science & Technology. The purpose of the award is "to encourage creativity in research and technology or methods of analysis to provide a scientific basis for informed environmental control decision-making processes, or to provide practical technologies that will reduce health risk factors." Dr. Morel currently serves as an Advisor to the Dreyfus Foundation.

Related links: Francois Morel's faculty page at Princeton, ACS Award page

 

Richard Zare Joins Board of Directors

Dr. Richard N. Zare was elected a Member of the Board of Directors at the 2010 annual meeting.  Zare is the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science at Stanford University and had previously served as an Advisor to the Foundation. He is renowned for his research in the area of laser chemistry, resulting in a greater understanding of chemical reactions at the molecular level. By experimental and theoretical studies he has made seminal contributions to our knowledge of molecular collision processes and to solving a variety of problems in chemical analysis. His development of laser induced fluorescence as a method for studying reaction dynamics has been widely adopted.

Related link: Zare lab

Dreyfus Foundation Names New Advisors

At the Foundation's 2010 annual meeting, the Board of Directors named two new Advisors: Drs. David E. Hansen and Francois M. M. Morel.  Hansen is Dean of the Joint Science Department and a Professor of Chemistry at Claremont McKenna, Pitzer, and Scripps Colleges.  He had previously served as a Foundation Advisor from 2000-2008.  Morel is the Albert G. Blanke Professor of Geosciences at Princeton University as well as the Director of Princeton's Center for Environmental BioInorganic Chemistry.  They join JoAnne Stubbe (MIT), Matthew Tirrell (UC Berkeley), and John Tully (Yale) as Advisors. 

Related links: David Hansen, Francois Morel

 

JoAnne Stubbe Wins 2010 Welch Award

JoAnne Stubbe, Novartis Professor of Chemistry and Biology at MIT and Advisor to the Dreyfus Foundation, has been named co-recipient of the 2010 Welch Award in Chemistry, which consists of $300,000 and a gold
medallion. She receives this award in recognition of her research that explains how enzymes have evolved to carry out complex chemistry critical to life. Stubbe shares the Welch Award with Christopher T. Walsh, Hamilton Kuhn Professor at Harvard Medical School. Walsh received a Teacher-Scholar award from the Dreyfus Foundation in 1976, while at MIT.

Stubbe has also been awarded the 2009 National Medal of Science for her work in understanding the enzymatic mechanisms in DNA replication and repair and the 2010 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry for uncovering the intricate processes by which cells safely use free radicals, which has led to the design of new drugs in the fight against cancer.

Related Links: Welch announcement, MIT press release, and Stubbe lab


John Tully Awarded Joseph O. Hirschfelder Prize in Theoretical Chemistry

John Tully, Sterling Professor of Chemistry at Yale University and Advisor to the Dreyfus Foundation, will be awarded the 2010-11 Joseph O. Hirschfelder Prize in Theoretical Chemistry. Given annually by the Theoretical Chemistry Institute and Department of Chemistry at University of Wisconsin-Madison, the prize is among the most prominent in the field.  Dr. Tully will present three Hirschfelder lectures at the university during October 4-6, 2010. 

 

Related links: John Tully, Joseph O. Hirschfelder Prize

 

Henry C. Walter elected President of Board of Directors, Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation

Mr. Henry C. Walter was elected President of the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation by the Board of Directors at the 2009 annual meeting.

Mr. Walter was first elected to the Board in 1978. He had served as Chair of the Finance and Audit Committee since 1990 and Treasurer of the Foundation since 2002. He received his BSE in chemical engineering from Princeton University and his MBA from Harvard University.

Dorothy Dinsmoor, who had served as Foundation President since 1991, will serve as Vice President and Secretary.

John R. H. Blum is Treasurer and chair of the Finance and Audit Committee. He previously served as Vice President and Secretary.

Related link:

Board of Directors: http://www.dreyfus.org/board.shtml

 

Climate, Energy, and the Changing Environment: A Dreyfus Foundation Symposium on Environmental Chemistry Research

Agenda:

Session I, Chair: Francois Morel, Princeton University

James Anderson, Harvard University
Strategic choices for global energy: Constraints from feedbacks in the climate system

Kimberly Prather, University of California, San Diego
New insights into the role of aerosols in climate change

Dianne Newman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
From iron oxides to infections: Roles for redox-active antibiotics in microbial survival and development

Session II, Chair: Beatrice Renault, New York Academy of Sciences

Paul Anastas, Yale University
Transformative innovations in green chemistry needed for sustainability

Eric Jacobsen, Harvard University
Selective yet general catalysts

Session III, Chair: John Seinfeld, California Institute of Technology

Nathan Lewis, California Institute of Technology
Artificial photosynthesis: Fuel from the sun

Daniel Nocera, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The chemistry of renewable energy

Session IV, Chair: John Brauman, Stanford University

Ralph Cicerone, National Academy of Sciences
Putting science to work in developing science policy

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS