Professor Thomas B. Rauchfuss was awarded the Ronald Nyholm Prize, given biennially by the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK) for outstanding contributions to inorganic chemistry. The prize winner receives £5000, a medal and a certificate. Tom is the first Illinois faculty member to win the prize, which was established to commemorate the life and work of Sir Ronald Nyholm, president of the Royal Society of Chemistry from 1968 to 1970. Sir Nyholm (1917-1971) was born in New South Wales, Australia and his work centered on the coordination chemistry of the transition metals, particular with arsines as ligands.
Professor Rauchfuss received his undergraduate degree from the University of Puget Sound (1971) and his Ph.D. from Washington State University (1976). He has studied overseas at the following institutions: the Australian National University, University of Auckland, University of Strasbourg, and the Technical University of Karlsruhe. He is interested in all aspects of the synthesis and reactivity of inorganic, organometallic, and main-group compounds and materials. He is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and is University of Illinois Scholar. He has previously won numerous awards, including the ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry, a Humboldt Foundation Senior Scientist, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, a Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, a Union Carbide Innovative Recognition Award, and a DuPont Young Professor Award.