Thomas Rauchfuss Honored by ACS for Distinguished Service

(August 2017)

Thomas Rauchfuss, Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis Advisory Board, honored with ACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry. Credit: University of Illinois News Bureau, L. Brian Stauffer

Congratulations to Thomas Rauchfuss on receiving the American Chemical Society's Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry. The award, sponsored by Strem Chemicals, recognizes his outstanding service and exceptional research. Rauchfuss is the Larry Faulkner Research Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He's also a key member of the six-person Advisory Committee for the Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis, an Energy Frontier Research Center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

Rauchfuss has led outstanding fundamental research for cleaner energy sources. This work includes determining how three classes of hydrogen-producing enzymes function. Overlapping with this enzymatic work, he and his colleagues have contributed to soluble metal sulfide chemistry.

Well known and well respected, Rauchfuss is a tireless force for advancing inorganic chemistry. He's served on editorial advisory boards for 30 years. He currently serves on the three boards: Polyhedron, Inorganic Syntheses, and Chemical Reviews. He's taught and mentored a cadre of undergraduate and graduate students. He's given invited lectures and served as a visiting professor in Europe and Australia.

His latest award joins a host of others, including the Nyholm Medal from the Royal Society of Chemistry and the ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry. In addition, he's a Fellow of the American Chemical Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, J.S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.