Scott E. Denmark, Reynold C. Fuson Professor of Chemistry, was the recipient of the inaugural Angewandte Chemie Chair, a prestigious recognition presented during the 19th Belgian Organic Synthesis Symposium, which was held July 5-10 in Leuven, Belgium.
The symposium combines lectures delivered by established organic chemists as well as younger rising stars. The Angewandte Chemie Chair honors a senior, established scientist who has made transformative contributions to the field of organic chemistry. During the symposium, the chair delivers a special one-day intensive course or workshop on special topics in organic synthesis.
During the 2026 symposium, Prof. Denmark presented the full-day chair session entitled "Adventures in Synthetic Methodology: Merging Preparative, Mechanistic and Computational Chemistry". The Chair at the BOSS meetings (established in 1986) traditionally gives four lectures combining original research with advanced topics given that the participants (540 this time) are predominantly graduate students. As the inaugural Angewandte Chemie Chair (and the most senior of all previous Chairs at the time of their appointment) Prof. Denmark chose to set a new standard by delivering five lectures all from his own research group (see the link for the diversity of topics).
Prof. Denmark has been a member of the Illinois Chemistry faculty since 1980. He was promoted to associate professor in 1986, full professor in 1987 and then in 1991 named the Reynold C. Fuson Professor of Chemistry. His research is primarily focused on the invention of new synthetic reactions and elucidating the mechanisms and origins of stereocontrol in novel, asymmetric reactions. In recent years, his group has investigated the use of chemoinformatics and machine learning to identify and optimize enantioselective catalysts and reaction conditions for a variety of organic and organometallic transformations.