Prize Recipient

James L. Kinsey
Rice University

"For his outstanding contribution to molecular spectroscopy, in particular, his studies of the spectroscopy of molecules in their process of falling apart, dynamics of molecules by stimulated emission pumping, and the significant advance of Fourier transform Doppler spectroscopy."

Professor James L. Kinsey was born in Paris, Texas (USA) in 1934. He received his B.A. in 1956 and Ph D in 1959 from Rice University. After postdoctoral work at the University of Upsala (Sweden) and the University of California at Berkeley, he joined the chemistry faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1962. He remained at MIT until 1988, when he accepted his current post at Rice University as D. R. Bullard-Welch Foundation Professor of Science and Dean of the Wiess School of Natural Sciences.

Professor Kinsey's principal research interests are chemical dynamics, spectroscopy and theoretical chemistry. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was awarded the E. O. Lawrence Memorial Award by the U. S. Department of Energy in 1987. In 1990, he and Robert W. Field (as mentors) and their student Yongqin Chen were honored by the American Chemical Society's Nobel Laureat Signature Award for Graduate Education.