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World-class honours for Yorkshire scientists - 04/06/2008
A scientist at the University of York will become the first Briton to be awarded the Luigi Sacconi medal for inorganic chemistry – of which previous recipients have included two Nobel prize-winners.
The award highlights the strength of the region’s academic excellence. Nine internationally renowned universities offer a wealth of expertise and collaborate closely with industry on commercially-focused enterprises.
Professor Robin Perutz of the University of York’s Department of Chemistry, uses light in his research to initiate chemical reactions of compounds containing metals and deduce how they react. This method has enabled him to determine how the metals behave in catalytic processes and to discover new types of chemical interactions between metals and organic compounds.
Professor Perutz – who is a previous winner of the Nyholm Medal from the UK’s Royal Society of Chemistry – is being given the award in recognition of his outstanding achievements throughout his career. The medal is named after Luigi Sacconi, a twentieth-century chemist who published world-leading research into magnetism and spectroscopy. It is presented by the Italian Chemical Society and the Luigi Sacconi Foundation.
In similar news, which also supports the exceptional performance of the region’s research base, Dr Evgeny Sklyanin of the Department of Mathematics at the University of York, has been awarded one of the world’s top honours in science – a Fellowship of the Royal Society. Dr Sklyanin’s area of expertise is in the ‘theory of integrable systems’, a branch of mathematical physics where his research has resulted in developing new mathematical tools for studying such systems. The terms ‘Sklyanin brackets’ and ‘Sklyanin algebras’ have become generally accepted.
Election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society is recognised worldwide as a sign of the highest regard in science.
