Mavrikakis wins American Chemical Society award for creative research

The American Chemical Society honored Manos Mavrikakis, the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor and Paul A. Elfers Professor of chemical and biological engineering, with the Gabor A. Somorjai Award for Creative Research in Catalysis. The recognition highlighted Mavrikakis’ innovative research program, which combines molecular modeling, microkinetics, and experiments to reveal what happens inside catalyst active sites during chemical reactions and to discover better catalysts. In a personal statement related to the honor, Mavrikakis outlined his aspirations for the next 10 years, which include bringing computational chemistry into the forefront as a driver for new materials and process discovery, as well as identifying fundamental unifying principles for the diverse array of catalytic reactions and materials in order to speed up the translation of discoveries into real-world applications.