Gregory S. Girolami, a professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois, has been elected chair of the Council for Chemical Research.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Gregory S. Girolami, a professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois, has been elected chair of the Council for Chemical Research. He will serve two years as a vice chair, and then assume leadership of the organization in 2009.
Based in Washington, D.C., the Council for Chemical Research was formed in 1979 to promote cooperation in basic research and to encourage high-quality education in the chemical sciences and in chemical engineering.
The organization’s membership, which consists of leaders from industry, academia and government, represents much of the U.S. chemical research enterprise, currently comprising more than 200 companies, universities and government laboratories with a combined research and development budget of more than $7 billion.
Girolami is known internationally for his research on the synthesis of new inorganic and organometallic compounds and materials, their mechanisms of formation, and the measurement and rationalization of their physical properties.
Among his awards, Girolami has received a Naval Research Young Investigator Award, a Sloan Foundation Fellowship, a Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, and a University Scholar Award. He has co-written more than 160 research publications, and is a co-author of the leading textbook on the synthesis of inorganic compounds.
Girolami has been a member of the Council for Chemical Research Governing Board since 2003, and has served on the organization’s Executive Committee and as chair of its Program and Initiatives Committee.
Girolami earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Texas and his master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of California at Berkeley. He joined the Illinois faculty in 1983.
