Margrave honored for groundbreaking work in fluorine chemistry

Margrave, the E.D. Butcher Professor of Chemistry, is being
honored for his groundbreaking work in the field of fluorine
chemistry and for his work with high-temperature liquid
metals.

Margrave is one of three noted academics honored with an
AIC Chemical Pioneer Award this year. The others are Gerard
Jaouen of Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie in
Paris and Julius Rebek of Scripps Research Institute in
La Jolla, Calif. All three will receive their awards at
the 2002 AIC National Meeting in Boston Nov. 7-9. AIC also
will honor its 2002 Gold Medal winner, Tobin Marks of Northwestern
University, at the meeting.

“I’m particularly honored to receive this AIC
Chemical Pioneer Award because there is no analog for the
recognition of one’s own peers,” said Margrave.
“It’s also gratifying to see fluorine chemistry
receive this level of recognition.”

Margrave earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering
in 1948 and a doctorate in chemistry in 1950, both from
the University of Kansas. Margrave joined the faculty at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1952 after a postdoctoral
fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. In
Madison, he held Alfred P. Sloan and Guggenheim fellowships
and won the Kiekhofer Teaching Award. Since coming to Rice
in 1963, Margrave has served in dozens of roles, including
five years as chairman of Rice’s Department of Chemistry
and 14 years as dean and vice president of Advanced Studies
and Research. In 1974 he was elected to membership in the
National Academy of Sciences. He is a fellow of the AIC,
the American Physical Society and the American Association
for the Advancement of Science.
“There was a strong field of candidates for all of
these awards,” said Attila Pavlath, AIC awards committee
member and immediate-past president of the American Chemical
Society. “It is amazing to read about all of the innovators
driving the chemical sciences.”