Chemistry Professor Amos Smith Awarded Honorary Doctorate from Queen’s University Belfast

Amos B. Smith III, the William Warren Rhodes-Robert J. Thompson Professor of Chemistry, was recently awarded an honorary doctorate of science from Queen’s University Belfast in recognition of his distinguished contributions to the field of organic chemistry.

In delivering the citation at the ceremony in which Smith was honored, Professor Robbie Burch described Smith as an outstanding synthetic organic chemist. “He is distinguished for his exemplary research contributions to the field of organic synthesis and new reaction development, and to the application of new methodologies for the synthesis of natural products that have the potential to be the basis of new anticancer drugs,” said Burch. “This research has particular relevance to Northern Ireland and Queen’s University, where the internationally renowned Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology is based.”

Smith earned Bucknell University’s first combined four-year, bachelor’s-master’s degree in chemistry, receiving his doctorate in chemistry from Rockefeller University in 1972. He joined the Penn faculty the following year. Smith served as chemistry department chair from 1988 to 1996, and in 1998 he became the first editor-in-chief of the American Chemical Society journal Organic Letters. This year he was also selected as member of the inaugural class of Fellows of the American Chemical Society.