2009 Herman Mark Scholars Award Winners 

The Herman F. Mark and Mark Scholars awards recognize outstanding research and leadership in Polymer Science and are sponsored by Elsevier. 

 
Karen Wooley with POLY Chair Dennis Smith

This year’s Herman F. Mark Scholar Award was awarded to Karen L. Wooley, Texas A&M University for her leadership in the application of polymer chemistry towards nanostructured materials.  She was one of the first to recognize the potential impact that could be made towards the preparation of robust nanostructures through covalent crosslinking of self-assembled block copolymers. Dr. Wooley also developed synthetic methods leading to fully degradable structures, the covalent attachment of biologically-active ligands, the binding of reporter molecules for PET imaging, the synthesis of polymer-drug conjugates, all of which constitute additional important and highly practical contributions from her laboratory.

James Crivello with POLY Chair Dennis Smith

James V. Crivello, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was awarded the Mark Senior Scholar for his seminal work on iodonium salts and sulfonium salts that has had a wide impact on Polymer Science.  His initial observations resulted in the development of photocurable resins.  He was the key individual not only in the development of syntheses for the onium salts, which required the synthesis of initators tailored to specific wave lengths, but in the mechanistic studies of the polymerization reactions and the design of the specific polymer systems.  These discoveries in onium salt chemistry were utilized by Frechet and Willson and others at IBM for their very successful development of positive photoresist systems which are used commercially in the manufacture of integrated circuits.

Each scholar had a full session at the Washington, DC meeting concluding with their award address.  The Polymer Division thanks and recognizes these outstanding individuals for their work, dedication, and leadership within the field of Polymer Science.

Awardees group