The Japanese government has awarded chemistry professor Amos Smith its Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, for his outstanding contributions to the training and education of Japanese scientists and for the promotion of academic exchange between Japan and the United States.America.”
Smith’s research encompasses synthetic chemistry, bioorganic chemistry and materials science. He is internationally known for his outstanding achievements in the area of total synthesis of architecturally complex natural products having important bio-regulatory properties. To date, he and his coworkers have published more than 470 publications in these areas.
He earned a B.S. and M.S. at Bucknell University and a Ph.D. at the Rockefeller University. He came to Penn in 1973 and holds the William Warren Rhodes-Robert J. Thompson Chair of Chemistry. He is also a visiting director and honorary member of the Kitasato Institute in Tokyo, Japan. In 1998, Smith became the first editor-in-chief of a new American Chemical Society journal, Organic Letters. His many honors include the Japan Research Foundation’s Yamada Prize for Optically Active Compounds, a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a fellowship from the Japan Society for Promotion of Science and the American Chemical Society Award for Creative Work in Organic Synthesis.
The Order of the Rising Sun, which was established in 1875, is awarded to Japanese citizens and others for exceptional civil or military merit. In the last 20 years, Smith has accepted and mentored approximately 50 Japanese scientists in his laboratory. He has also contributed significantly to academic exchange between Japan and the U.S. by delivering lectures at Japanese universities and pharmaceutical companies. He visits Japan almost annually.