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Priestly Medalists, from left: Paul Flory (1974), Linus Pauling (1984), and Gabor Somorjai (2008 ) |
Every other year, the American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting includes a Tribology Symposium under the Colloids and Interfaces division. This year, the meeting was held in New Orleans, and I was able to participate by presenting our research on the conformational origins of polymer brush lubrication. The Priestly Medal went to Gabor Somorjai for his contributions to surface science and catalysis. He essentially established the field here in the US, popularly being referred to as the “father of modern surface chemistry”. I keep a copy if his Chemistry in Two Dimensions: Surfaces (1981), based on his lectures at Cornell, handy on my office bookshelf. Our research group traces its lineage to his group at UC Berkeley, where my professor spent his postdoc years. We now employ the ultra-high vacuum (UHV) techniques of surface anayses and scanning probe microscopies (SPM) to study tribological phenomena. I was therefore excited to listen to his talk, and did not miss the chance to take a photo with him. It was a little bit odd being somewhat of a scientist’s groupie, but Somorjai–a huge bear of a Hungarian–was surprisingly warm and winsome. He then awkwardly excused himself for his autograph-signing appointment. (more…)
