PRF Awards Five Unrestricted $50,000 Grants The Petroleum Research Fund, which is administered by the American Chemical Society, has awarded re­search grants of $50,000 each to Dr. Robert B. Bird of the University of Wisconsin; Dr. Robert M. Garrels and Dr. Frank H. Westheimer of Harvard University; Dr. Glen A. Russell of Iowa State University; and Dr. Andrew Streitwieser, Jr., of the Uni­versity of California, Berkeley.

These unsolicited awards are given without restriction to support research by outstanding scientists selected for past excellence in basic research studies. Preference is given to those who are thought to be at or near peak research productivity. The recipient may use the funds to pursue any area of research of interest to him.

All awardees of these PRF grants must be faculty members at an edu­cational institution. Final selections are made by the 22-man PRF advisory board and approved by the ACS Board of Directors.

Dr. Bird is professor of chemical

engineering at the University of Wis­consin. He received a B.S. in 1947 from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in 1950 from Wisconsin. He has been a member of the Wisconsin faculty since 1953.

Dr. Bird's research interests are in chemical engineering and theoretical chemistry involving equations of state, properties of gases and liquids, trans­port phenomena, and non-Newtonian flow. He is a co-author of "Molecular Theory of Gases and Liquids" and "Transport Phenomena."

Currently a Fulbright lecturer at Kyoto and Nagoya universities in Japan, Dr. Bird presented the Humble lectures in science at the University of Texas in 1960 and 1962 and at Stanford College of Engineering in 1961.

Dr. Garrels is professor of geology and head of the department at Harvard. He earned a B.S. in 1937 at the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in geology at Northwestern Uni­versity in 1941. He taught at North­western for 11 years and served with the U.S. Geological Survey before join­ing the Harvard faculty in 1955.

Dr. Garrels' work has been in the application of chemistry to a variety of geological problems connected with ore formation. A member of the Na­tional Academy of Sciences^ he has contributed more than 50 publica­tions in crystallization of minerals, re­actions among minerals, and ionic dif­fusion through rocks.

Dr. Russell is associate professor of chemistry at Iowa State. He received a B.Ch.E. from Rensselaer Polytech­nic Institute in 1947 and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Purdue University in 1951. He was a research associate at General Electric from 1951 until 1958, when he joined Iowa State.

Current research at Iowa State under Dr. Russell's direction includes reactions of metal ions with free radi­cals, base-catalyzed reactions involving dimethylsulfoxide, and alkylmercury compounds. His major contribution to free radical chemistry is considered to be his studies on the spontaneous formation of radical anions from nitro-aromatics in basic solution.

Dr. Streitwieser is associate pro­fessor of chemistry at Berkeley and has been on the faculty since 1952. He graduated from Columbia Univer­sity with an A.B. in 1948 and received a Ph.D. there in 1952.

Dr. Streitwieser was a National Science Foundation faculty fellow in 1959-60 and has held an Alfred P. Sloan fellowship since 1958. He has published more than 60 papers in theoretical organic chemistry, reaction mechanisms, stereochemistry, and molecular orbital theory. Dr. Streit­wieser is recognized especially for his research in kinetic isotope effects and in acidity of hydrocarbons.

Dr. Westheimer is Loeb Professor of chemistry at Harvard. He received an A.B. from Dartmouth University in 1932 and a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1935. He taught at the University of Chicago from 1936 until he joined the Harvard faculty in 1954. He was chairman of the chemistry de­partment from 1959 to 1962.

Dr. Westheimer has trained and supervised more than 60 doctoral candidates and postdoctoral fellows at Chicago and Harvard. His principal research has been in theory of steric effects, chemical and biological oxida­tion, electrostatic effects in organic chemistry, and nitration mechanisms.

A member of the National Academy of Sciences, he was an invited lecturer in 1961 at the Fifth International Con­gress of Biochemistry in Moscow.

Eastern New York Section Gets ACS Award Dr. Stanley C. Bunce (center), 1961-62 chairman of the Eastern New York Section, receives the 1963 American Chemical Society Local Section Public Relations Award from Dr. Charles Overberger, director of the Second District. Dr. Arthur E. Newkirk (right), the section's 1962-63 chairman, looks on. The award was presented at the section's annual ladies' night meeting.

54 C & E N J U L Y 1, 19 63

A C S N E W S

Society to Administer Award Honoring James Flack Noms Northeastern Section will sponsor award for accomplishments in physical organic chemistry

An ACS-admin­istered award has been established in physical or­ganic chemistry to honor the late Dr. James Flack Norris, a Past-President of the

Society. The annual award will be sponsored

by the ACS Northeastern Section from a fund willed to the section by Mrs. Norris to perpetuate the memory of her husband, who taught chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Tech­nology for 33 years. On petition from the section, the ACS Board of Directors approved Society adminis­tration of the award at its June meet­ing. This will bring to 25 the num­ber of awards administered by the national Society to recognize indi­vidual achievement, and will be the first sponsored by a local section.

The purpose of the new honor is to encourage and reward outstanding accomplishments in physical organic chemistry. I t will consist of an hon­orarium of $1000, up to $350 for travel expenses, and an engraved scroll. The award will be presented for the first time in 1965, the 25th anniversary of Dr. Norris' death.

Dr. Norris was one of the first American chemists to call attention to the physical chemical aspects of organic chemistry. In his textbook and lectures he emphasized the effect of substituent groups on the ionic strength of organic acids. Dr. Louis Hammett of Columbia University, one of the outstanding physical organic chemists, credits Dr. Norris with in­fluencing his approach to organic chemistry, which ultimately led to his own widely studied book "Physical Organic Chemistry."

Dr. Norris received a Ph.D. under Dr. Ira Remsen at Johns Hopkins Uni­versity in 1895. He joined the chem­istry faculty at MIT that year. From 1904 to 1915 he taught at Simmons College and from 1912 to 1914 he lectured at Harvard, where Dr. Ham­mett was an undergraduate. After a year at Vanderbilt University, Dr.

Norris returned to MIT, remaining un­til his death in 1940.

In 1925 and 1926 Dr. Norris was President of the ACS and for the fol­lowing nine years he was on the So­ciety's Board of Directors. He was vice president of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry from 1925 to 1928.

In addition to the new award, the Northeastern Section has sponsored and administered since 1951 the James Flack Norris Award for outstanding achievements in the teaching of chem­istry. The section has also taken steps to establish a James Flack Norris Memorial Room in the new chemistry building at MIT, using $25,000 of the fund left by Mrs. Norris.

Special Prices for CA Index End Aug. 15 The prepubHcation price offer for the Sixth Cumulative Index to Chemical Abstracts expires Aug. 15 at midnight, at which time the cost will go up 40%. Until then, ACS members and educa­tional institutions can buy it for $500, and all others for $1000. A three-payment plan is available. The new index, which covers chemistry's most active five-year period, will contain 29,000,000 words and 21,565 pages, and will cost nearly $2.5 million to produce. It combines in a single source all entries from the regular CA indexes during the 1957-61 period; revises and develops nomenclature in keeping with current usage, and intro­duces new names where applicable. It will be approximately the same size as its predecessor, the Fifth Decennial Index, even though it covers only half the number of years. All orders should be directed to Special Issue Sales at the Washington office.

New Local Section Officers CINCINNATI. Robert A. Harris of Hil­ton Davis Chemical Co. is the new chair­

man of the Cincin­nati Section. Other officers are Dr. Al­fred Richardson, Jr., first vice chair­man and chairman-elect; Alfred H. Frye, second vice-chairman; Dr. Floyd L. James, secretary; and Dr.

Ted J. Logan, treasurer. They took office in May.

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J U L Y 1, 1963 C & E N 55