Molander Receives Award for Synthetic Methods Research

Hirschmann-Makineni Professor of Chemistry Gary Molander has been chosen to receive an American Chemical Society (ACS) national award, the Herbert C. Brown Award for Creative Research in Synthetic Methods. The Brown Award was created to recognize and encourage outstanding and creative contributions to research in synthetic methods.

Molander, who chairs the Department of Chemistry, focuses his research on the development of new ways to synthesize organic molecules. His lab is working to expand and improve the Suzuki coupling reaction for organoboron compounds, using robust, air- and water-stable potassium organotrifluoroborates (R-BF3K) to carry out couplings under relatively mild conditions using non-toxic components.

Molander was elected a fellow of the ACS in 2010. His many awards include a Council for Chemical Research Research Collaboration Award, Purdue University Department of Chemistry Outstanding Alumni Award, and Boron in the Americas Frontier Award. He received the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, the highest teaching award at Penn, in 2006, and was a Novartis Lecturer 2012-13. He received his doctorate from Purdue University and was a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Research Fellow. He came to Penn in 1999. 

The world’s largest scientific society, ACS represents professionals at all degree levels and in all fields of chemistry and sciences that involve chemistry. Molander will be honored at an awards ceremony on March 24, 2015, in conjunction with the 249th ACS national meeting in Denver.