Pictured are Erica Martin from Rohm and Haas, Geoff Coates and Dennis Smith, POLY chair

The Polymer Division honored the recipient of the 2009 Carl S. Marvel Creative Polymer Chemistry award, Professor Geoffrey W. Coates (Cornell University), at the Spring ACS Meeting in Salt Lake City.

Professor Coates has made, and continues to make major creative contributions and innovations in modern polymer chemistry. Coates is an internationally known polymer chemist whose research focuses on the development of new catalyst systems for the synthesis of novel polymers. Besides his groundbreaking research in major areas of metal-catalyzed synthesis, Coates has turned his attention to several important families of commercially relevant polymers and has developed efficient, environmentally-friendly and affordable synthetic routes to aliphatic polycarbonates, polylactic acid, and poly-beta-hydroxyalkanoates. These three families of compounds, which reflect a novel approach to polymer chemistry in today's post-petroleum era, are already in widespread commercial use.

Coates' novel synthetic methodology has lead to important discoveries and new cost-efficient processes for use in both basic and applied polymer science