Prize Recipient


Recipient Picture

Jens Norskov
Stanford University

Citation:

"For his ground-breaking contributions to elucidating fundamental principles of reactivity on solid surfaces and the prediction of improved catalysts."

Background:

Jens Nørskov is the Leland T. Edwards Professor in the Stanford School of
Engineering and professor of photon science at the SLAC National Accelerator
Laboratory. He also serves as director of the SUNCAT Center for Interface Science
and Catalysis, a partnership between Stanford and SLAC. Nørskov's research group
focuses on the development of electronic structure methods to describe interface
phenomena, including adsorption, surface chemical reactions, heterogeneous
catalysis, electrocatalysis and photocatalysis. The goal is to understand which
properties, electronic and geometrical, determine chemical activity at the surface
and use those insights, in combination with large-scale computations, to design new
catalytic surfaces and nanostructures. Applications include photo-chemical water
splitting, C02 reduction, nitrogen reduction, syngas reactions and other energy
transformations. Nørskov is a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Science and
Letters, The Danish Academy of Engineering, and a fellow of the American PhYSical
Society. Recent Awards include the Michel Boudart Award from the North American
Catalysis Society and the European Federation of Catalysis Societies and the Gabor A.
Somorjai Award from the American Chemical Society. Nørskov received an MSc in
physics and chemistry, and a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of
Aarhus (Denmark).


Selection Committee:

Marsha Lester, Chair; John "Jack" Simons; Wilson Ho; Bruce Kay; Anne McCoy