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ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry
In cooperation with the American Chemical Society, scientists are honored for outstanding work in inorganic chemistry.
About the ACS Award
This award is an early recognition for the best chemists in the world, testified by the fact that several past laureates went on to receive a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Examples include 1996 awardee Richard R. Schrock (MIT, Cambridge), who received the Nobel Prize in 2005 "for the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis" and 1981 awardee Henry Taube (Stanford University), who received the Nobel Prize in 1983 "for his work on the mechanisms of electron transfer reactions, especially in metal complexes."
2026 Award winner: Jonas C. Peters
In 2026, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany was again pleased to sponsor the ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry, given this year to Jonas C. Peters, Bren Professor of Chemistry and director of the Resnick Sustainability Institute, California Institute of Technology. He was awarded “for trailblazing the development of synthetic iron complexes that catalyze nitrogen fixation and brilliant mechanistic studies that have revealed the catalytic mechanisms.”
Peters on his hopes for the future: “I really hope my laboratory will break ground in new areas of fundamental chemistry. I like surprises. Through service, I additionally want to help ensure that scientific discovery and innovation, in chemistry and so many other areas of science and engineering, remain vibrant and also welcoming to foreign talent in the US. This is essential.”
What Peters’s colleagues say: “Through his work on molecular-based nitrogen reduction chemistry, Jonas has built a transformative inorganic program that has, in many ways, challenged our understanding of electronic structures while also unveiling fascinating, redox-adjustable bonding motifs.”—François Gabbaï, Texas A&M University
List of recent Award Winners
| Year | Name | Affiliation | Distinguished Project |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Jonas C. Peters | Resnick Sustainability Institute, California Institute of Technology | For the development of synthetic iron complexes that catalyze nitrogen fixation and for mechanistic studies that have revealed the catalytic mechanisms |
| 2025 | Mas Subramanian | Oregon State University | For the discovery of new functional solid-state inorganic materials with unique and useful properties and for transforming them into knowledge and practical applications |
| 2024 | Frank Neese | Max Planck Institute for Kohlenforschung | For outstanding accomplishments in combining high-level theory with experiment to obtain insight into the properties and reactivities of transition-metal complexes and metalloenzymes |
2023 | Jerry L. Atwood | University of Missouri–Columbia | Extending the transformative principles of inorganic chemistry to the disparate fields of separation science, host-guest chemistry, and supramolecular chemistry |
| 2022 | Susan M. Kauzlarich | University of California, Davis | For the development of a new class of inorganic compounds, transition-metal Zintl phases, and demonstrating their application in energy conversion devices and as nanoparticle synthons |
| 2021 | Kristin Bowman-James | University of Kansas | Fundamental contributions to inorganic chemistry by providing insights into anion coordination from a transition metal coordination perspective |
| 2020 | Catherine Murphy | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Developing inorganic nanomaterials for energy-related and biological applications, and understanding chemical interactions of these nanomaterials with their environment. |
| 2019 | George Christou | University of Florida, Gainsville | Pioneering work in magnetic metal-oxo clusters and the discovery of numerous single-molecule magnets, many exhibiting unprecedented physical properties important to new 21st century technologies |
| 2018 | James M. Mayer | Yale University, New Haven | Explaining and applying the principles of proton-coupled electron-transfer reactions in catalysis and bioinorganic chemistry. |
| 2017 | Lawrence Que, Jr. | University of Minnesota, Minneapolis and Saint Paul | Contributions to the field of inorganic chemistry that have profoundly impacted our understanding of the nature of high-valent iron centers in biology. |
| 2016 | Mercouri G. Kanatzidis | Northwestern University, Evanston | Pioneering achievements in the development and understanding of metal chalcogenide chemistry. |
| 2015 | John T. Groves | Princeton University, Princeton | Bridging the fundamental principles of inorganic chemistry with applied catalysis and functional bioinorganic chemistry. |
| 2014 | Guy Bertrand | University of California, San Diego | Contributions in the development of the chemistry of stable carbenes as ligands, synthetic intermediates, and stand-alone catalysts. |
| 2013 | Daniel L. DuBois | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland | Studies on the interconversion of fuels and electricity, on synthetic organometallic and inorganic chemistry, and on thermodynamic studies relevant to catalysis. |
| 2012 | Clifford P. Kubiak | University of California, San Diego | Groundbreaking and detailed studies of the reduction of carbon dioxide by transition-metal catalysts. |
| 2011 | Robert J. Cava | Princeton University, Princeton | Seminal contributions to solid-state chemistry. |
| 2010 | Donald J. Darensbourg | Texas A&M University, College Station | Studies of the mechanisms of organometallic reactions and their specific applications to polycarbonate formation. |
List of prior Award Winners
2009 Daniel G. Nocera, Harvard University, Cambridge
2008 Kenneth N. Raymond, University of California, Berkeley
2007 Sheldon G. Shore, Ohio State University, Columbus
2006 Karl E. Wieghardt, Max-Planck-Institut, Mülheim an der Ruhr
2005 William J. Evans, University of California, Irvine
2004 Herbert W. Roesky, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen
2003 Karl O. Christe, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
2002 Thomas B. Rauchfuss, University of Illinois
2001 Edward I. Solomon, Stanford University, Stanford
2000 Edward I. Stiefel, Princeton University, Princeton
1999 Richard D. Adams, University of South Carolina, Columbia
1998 Brice Bosnich, University of Chicago, Chicago
1997 James L. Dye, Michigan State University, East Lansing
1996 Richard R. Schrock (Nobel Prize in 2005), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge
1995 Guido Pez, Air Products and Chemicals, Allentown
1994 Tobin J. Marks, Northwestern University, Evanston
1993 Gregory J. Kubas, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos
1992 Walter G. Klemperer, University of Illinois
1991 R. Bruce King, University of Georgia, Athens
1990 Thomas J. Meyer, University of North Carolina
1989 Malcolm H. Chisholm, Indiana University, Bloomington
1988 Mark S. Wrighton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge
1987 Stephen J. Lippard, Columbia University, New York City
1986 John D. Corbett, Iowa State University, Ames
1985 F. G. A. Stone, University of Bristol, Bristol
1984 Malcolm L. H. Green, University of Oxford, Oxford
1983 George W. Parshall, DuPont
1982 Roald Hoffmann (Nobel Prize in 1981), Cornell University, Ithaca
1981 Henry Taube (Nobel Prize in 1983), Stanford University, Stanford
1980 Alan M. Sargeson, Australian National University, Canberra
1979 James A. Ibers, Northwestern University, Evanston
1978 Harry B. Gray, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
1976 Richard H. Holm, Harvard University, Cambridge
1975 James P. Collman, Stanford University, Stanford
1974 Lawrence F. Dahl, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison
1973 M. Frederick Hawthorne, University of California, Los Angeles
1972 Theodore L. Brown, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana and Champaign
1971 Jack Lewis, University of Cambridge, Cambridge
1970 Neil Bartlett, University of California, Berkeley
1969 Russell S. Drago, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana and Champaign
1968 Jack Halpern, Universität Chicago, Chicago
1967 John L. Margrave, Rice University, Houston
1966 Geoffrey Wilkinson (Nobel Prize in 1973), Imperial College, London
1965 Earl L. Muetterties, DuPont
1964 Fred Basolo, Northwestern University, Evanston
1963 Daryle H. Busch, University of Kansas, Lawrence
1962 F. Albert Cotton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge