Professor Enrique Iglesia - 2023 Faraday open Prize: Faraday Lectureship Prize winner

Professor Enrique Iglesia FRSC

Winner: 2023 Faraday open Prize: Faraday Lectureship Prize

University of California, Berkeley

For outstanding contributions to the mechanistic understanding of catalysis, leading scientific innovation for environmental protection and the production of energy carriers, fuels, and chemicals.

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To this day, I refer to chemistry and engineering research as how humans are able to understand the language that molecules use to move to react...their dialects.

Professor Iglesia’s research group develop and analyse inorganic solids that have practical applications as catalysts in various chemical reactions. These reactions are significant in the creation, conversation and utilisation of energy carriers, as well as in the development of eco-friendly petrochemical syntheses and the protection of the environment. The team’s efforts include designing, synthesising, and characterising the structure and mechanisms of the inorganic solids.

The team exploit novel synthetic protocols to design and synthesise these materials, and employ a variety of experimental and computational methods to explore their structure and catalytic reaction mechanisms.

Read winner biography

Professor Enrique Iglesia is the Theodore Vermeulen Chair (Emeritus) in Chemical Engineering. He is Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, and Laboratory Fellow at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Enrique holds degrees from Princeton and Stanford and doctor honoris causa degrees from the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia and the Technical University of Munich.

Enrique joined UC-Berkeley after research and leadership positions at Exxon. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors, and the Real Sociedad de Ciencias Exactas (Spain). He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the American Chemical Society (ACS), the 萝莉社, an Honorary Fellow of the Chinese Chemical Society and past editor-in-chief of the Journal of Catalysis.

Among his awards are the Somorjai, Olah, and Murphree Awards from the ACS, the Alpha Chi Sigma, Wilhelm, and Walker Awards from the AIChE, the Emmett, Burwell, Boudart, and Distinguished Service Awards from NACS, the Gault Lectureship from the European Federation of Catalysis Societies and the Cross-Canada Lectureship from the Chemical Institute of Canada. He is the recipient of the ENI Prize, the Kozo Tanabe Prize, the Natural Gas Conversion Award, and the Noyce Teaching Prize. Enrique has co-authored more than 360 publications and nearly 50 issued patents. His conceptual and practical contributions to catalysis and chemical reaction engineering address some of the most significant challenges in energy conversion and use.

Q&A

How did you first become interested in chemistry?

Chemistry (and mathematics) arrived early and somewhat naturally as part of an educational system that was significantly more advanced and demanding in Cuba than in the US. Arriving in the US as a refugee from Cuba at the age of 14, and with only a very primitive command of English, the language of chemistry and mathematics (which I ultimately merged into chemical engineering as a profession) became a sort of showcase that others noticed, and which allowed me to be noticed.

This universal language of molecules and equations could be understood without reference to (or knowledge of) any given spoken language. Others wondered: how can someone communicate scientific matters so well with such a primitive command of the local "dialect". To this day, I refer to chemistry and engineering research as how humans are able to understand the language that molecules use to move and to react to their dialects. As often happens, what one does well, one likes to do; my lifelong love for molecules and their equations ultimately and inevitably followed my need for them, to be able to communicate with and to blend within my very uncomfortable surroundings; the immigrant in the foreign country found a voice early on without the need for the local language that he could not understand.

What advice would you give to a young person considering a career in chemistry?

In chemistry and in life ....
- Be multidisciplinary in attitude and accept the learning from other disciplines, so that you can translate their different languages into one.
- Separate what research you can fund from what research is meaningful to you and to society about doing: find time and resources for both , but use them to complement each other – as in life, one needs to eat, and one needs the time and the disposition to love what you do
- Avoid hyperbole and its hype cycle; work on important problems of broad impact especially when such problems are out of fashion; when they return, you will be well ahead of those who followed the hype wave.
- If a finding is unique, it is probably not useful, because it will never "happen" again; if a finding has no precedent (replace it with "novel", "first-in-kind", "breakthrough" "remarkable"), it often violates at least one of the laws of thermodynamics.
- Small groups innovate, create, and define their fields; large groups develop, implement, and deploy; these activities are complementary and they are all essential for progress, but they belong in different environments and become important at different points in time in the life cycle of a problem or a discipline; decide where you want to be and how you want to contribute. Ponder how you want to be remembered by your discipline (and your students) decades after you have made your most significant contributions.
- Remember that tenure as an academic represents the explicit license to quit every bad habit that was required of you in order to be tenured.

What has been a highlight for you (either personally or in your career)?

To watch an academic family and a biological family grow and thrive side-by-side. To recognise that my contribution consists of bringing them together in space and time, to provide some boundaries and a good example, and to let nature take it the rest of the way. To find simple explanations to complex problems and practical impact in unravelling the details of how nature works ... often enough to make it a method and a pattern.

What has been a challenge for you (either personally or in your career)?

To balance nurturing with mentoring – the love and the rules, the friendship and the mentoring.
To find logic in human actions and behaviours, as they occasionally defy the logic and the language of the molecules and the equations.
To know when my teaching is done and to let them go on their own when the time comes. To know when to criticise and when to praise and when to do both and in so doing build confidence and self-esteem.
To convince others that the intensity and time commitment of a research career is not a requirement for success or part of the job description, but a consequence of what we enjoy doing (and what we get reasonably well-paid for doing).
To accept prejudice against (and innuendo about) the achievements and recognitions of our research as a badge of honour and as a statement about our impact.