Chemical Heritage Foundation to Present 2008 Othmer Gold Medal to Yuan Tseh Lee

Nobel laureate, innovator, educator and leader will be honored at a full-day ceremony marking the 11th annual presentation of the Othmer Gold Medal.

PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) has announced that Yuan Tseh Lee, Nobel laureate in chemistry (1986), will receive the 2008 Othmer Gold Medal. The award ceremony and the annual Othmer Gold Medal luncheon will open the seventh annual Heritage Day on Thursday, 15 May 2008. This full day of awards and honors marks the 11th annual presentation of the Othmer Gold Medal.

"Lee was born in 1936 and educated in Taiwan under the shadow of Japanese occupation during World War II," said Thomas R. Tritton, president and CEO of CHF. "He persevered in education, excelled in research, and earned one of humankind's highest honors -- the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Following three successful decades in America, he returned to Taiwan, taking a leadership role in education reform and better relations with China."

Lee received the Nobel Prize in 1986 along with Dudley R. Herschbach and John C. Polanyi for their contributions to the study of the dynamics of chemical reactions. Their research contributed to the field of reaction dynamics by allowing the study of complex reaction mechanisms beyond the capability of previous methods.

About Yuan Lee

Yuan Tseh Lee was born on 19 November 1936 in Hsinchu, Taiwan. He received a B.S. from the National Taiwan University, an M.S. from Tsinghua University, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. In 1967 Lee joined the Harvard University group working on molecular beam experiments under Dudley Herschbach. After being appointed assistant professor at the University of Chicago in 1968, Lee rapidly made his laboratory the North American capital of molecular beam study. Lee returned to Berkeley as a full professor in 1974 and significantly expanded his research to include, in addition to crossed molecular beams, studies of reaction dynamics, investigations of various primary photochemical processes, and the spectroscopy of ionic and molecular clusters.

Lee has received numerous awards and honors, including the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the U.S. National Medal of Science, the Faraday Medal and Prize from the Royal Chemical Society of Great Britain, and the Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Medal from the Indian National Science Academy. He has also been awarded the Ernest O. Lawrence Award of the U.S. Department of Energy, the Harrison Howe Award, and the Peter Debye Award of Physical Chemistry from the American Chemical Society. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a foreign member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Gottingen Academy of Sciences, the Indian Academy of Sciences, the Korean Academy of Science and Technology, the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, the Japanese Academy, and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In addition Lee is a member of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan, the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World, and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

In 1994 Lee retired from his position as university professor and principal investigator for the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, and assumed the position of the president of Academia Sinica in Taiwan. In 2006 he became president emeritus and distinguished research fellow at the same institution. He has more than 30 honorary doctoral degrees from universities around the world.

About the Othmer Gold Medal

The Chemical Heritage Foundation established the Othmer Gold Medal in 1997 to honor outstanding individuals who have made multifaceted contributions to our chemical and scientific heritage through outstanding activity in such areas as innovation, entrepreneurship, research, education, public understanding, legislation, or philanthropy. Previous honorees are John D. Baldeschwieler, Arnold O. Beckman, Ronald C. D. Breslow, Thomas Cech, Carl Djerassi, Mary Lowe Good, George S. Hammond, Jon M. Huntsman, Ralph Landau, Robert S. Langer, Gordon E. Moore, P. Roy Vagelos, and James D. Watson.

The medal is presented annually and cosponsored by CHF and four affiliated organizations: the American Chemical Society (ACS), the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the Chemists' Club, and the Societe de Chimie Industrielle (American Section). The medal commemorates Donald Othmer (1904-1995), noted researcher, consultant, editor, engineer, inventor, philanthropist, professor, and coeditor of the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology.

About the Chemical Heritage Foundation

The Chemical Heritage Foundation serves the community of the chemical and molecular sciences, and the wider public, by treasuring the past, educating the present, and inspiring the future. CHF carries out a program of outreach and interpretation in order to advance an understanding of the role of the chemical and molecular sciences, technologies, and industries in shaping society; maintains a world-class collection of materials that document the history and heritage of the chemical and molecular sciences, technologies, and industries; and encourages research in its collections.

CONTACT: Neil Gussman, 215-873-8262, (cell) 717-314-2494, neilg@chemheritage.org