The Catalysis Club of Chicago is soliciting nominations for the Herman Pines Award for outstanding research in the field of catalysis. Herman Pines was an outstanding research scientist in both industry and academia, and his work revolutionized the general understanding of organic chemistry, particularly the chemistry of hydrocarbons interacting with strong acids. The Award in his honor is co-sponsored by UOP, where Herman Pines began his industrial career in 1930 and amassed 145 US patents, and by the Catalysis Club of Chicago of which Herman Pines was a founding member while at Northwestern University.
The Award will be presented at the 2025 Catalysis Club of Chicago Spring Symposium in May 2025 and consists of a plaque, a cash award of $1,000, and reimbursement for travel and lodging as a speaker.
The nominee must meet the following criteria:
• Significant achievements in catalysis research over the past five years.
• For year 2025, the award will be given to a member of Academia or National Labs.
• Active member in catalysis community.
• A resident of North America.
The 2025 Recipient of the Herman Pines award is Professor Matthew Neurock
The Catalysis Club of Chicago is extremely pleased to announce that Prof. Matthew Neurock from the University of Minnesota will receive the 2025 Herman Pines Award. Prof. Neurock is the Shell Distinguished Chaired Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Professor in Chemistry at the University of Minnesota, since 2014. Throughout his career, Matt has made pioneering advances that elucidate mechanistic concepts that connect disparate catalysis subdomains, making connections between homogeneous/heterogeneous, gas-phase/liquid-phase, and electrochemical/thermal catalysis by viewing catalytic reactivity through a molecular lens. Matt has been at the forefront of applications and developments of ab initio quantum mechanical methods within the US chemical engineering and catalysis communities. This leadership combined with his creativity and foresight into bringing computational chemistry to catalytic systems of significant complexity—in reaction environments with solvents, with background electrochemical potential, and with high surface coverages— has brought theoretical methods into the mainstream of catalysis research with tremendous impact on the interpretation of experiments and in the design of catalytic systems.
List of past award recipients of the Herman Pines Award:
1999 Prof. Harold Kung – Northwestern University
2000 Dr. John Monnier – Eastman Chemical Company
2001 Prof. Lanny Schmidt – University of Minnesota
2002 Dr. James Brazdil – BP
2003 Prof. James Dumesic – University of Wisconsin
2004 Dr. Alak Bhattacharyya – BP
2005 Prof. Israel Wachs – Lehigh University
2006 Dr. Jeff Miller – BP
2007 Prof. Chunshan Song – Pennsylvania State University
2008 Dr. Aleksey Yezerets – Cummins Inc.
2009 Prof. Tobin Marks – Northwestern University
2010 Dr. James Rekoske – UOP
2011 Prof. Jingguang Chen – University of Delaware
2012 Dr. Stuart Soled – ExxonMobil
2013 Prof. W. Nicholas Delgass – Purdue University
2014 Dr. Haiying Chen – Johnson Matthey
2015 Prof. Fabio Ribeiro – Purdue University
2016 Dr. DY Jan – Honeywell UOP
2017 Prof. Peter Stair – Northwestern University
2018 Dr. Jerzy Klosin – Dow
2019 Prof. Manos Mavrikakis – University of Wisconsin
2020 Dr. Christopher Nicholas – UOP
2021 Professor Paul Dauenhauer – University of Minnesota
2022 Dr. Ahmad Moini – BASF
2023 Prof. Omar Farha – Northwestern University
2024 Dr. Beata Kilos – Dow
2025 Prof. Matthew Neurock – University of Minnesota
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