Joseph Francisco Wins Royal Society of Chemistry Prize

Joseph Francisco, President’s Distinguished Professor of Earth and Environmental Science and Professor of Chemistry, has won the 2022 Centenary Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), for pioneering and creative applications of computational chemistry to the field of atmospheric chemistry, and for excellence in communication.

The RSC says, “Francisco is applying new tools from experimental physical and theoretical chemistry to solve atmospheric chemical problems. His research is advancing scientific understanding of chemical processes in the atmosphere at the molecular level so that we can make better choices and decisions for a sustainable planet. This approach has led to important discoveries of new chemistries occurring at the interfaces of cloud surfaces and fundamental new types of chemical bonding that control these processes. Learning that there is more chemistry occurring than previously known is exciting and brings us closer to thinking about innovative solutions to our present environmental challenges.”

Francisco is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. He currently serves as an Executive Editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society and sits on the Governing Board of the National Research Council. He was President of the American Chemical Society in 2010.

The RSC is a British learned society whose goal is to advance the chemical sciences and which has roots dating back to 1841.

To read more, including a Q&A with Francisco, click here.