The Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) and the American Institute of Chemists name Jacqueline Barton, the Arthur and Marian Hanisch Memorial Professor of Chemistry and chair of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology, recipient of the 2015 AIC Gold Medal. The award will be presented at CHF during Heritage Day festivities on May 14, 2015.
Barton earned a Ph.D at Columbia University, studying under former CHF board member Stephen J. Lippard. She presented the 2002 Ullyot Public Affairs Lecture at CHF on her research in charge transport in DNA.
Barton's academic career began at Hunter College, City University of New York and later, Columbia University. In 1989, she joined the faculty at Caltech. Barton pioneered the application of transition metal complexes to probe recognition and reactions of double-helical DNA. She also carried out seminal studies to elucidate electron-transfer chemistry mediated by the DNA double helix. Barton has received numerous awards for her work.
First awarded by the American Institute of Chemists (AIC) in 1926, and jointly awarded with CHF since 2003, 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 as well as other renowned researchers and engineers representing many facets of the world of chemistry. Medalists include Alfred Bader, Arnold O. Beckman, Paul Berg, Elizabeth Blackburn, Herbert C. Brown, F. Albert Cotton, Carl Djerassi, Walter Gilbert, Harry B. Gray, Ralph F. Hirschmann, Roald Hoffmann, Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Glenn T. Seaborg, Oliver Smithies, Max Tishler and George M. Whitesides.
For more information, visit: www.chemheritage.org