2009 Welch Award in Chemistry Recipient

Dr. Harry B. Gray
California Institute of Technology

"For definitive contributions to the field of inorganic chemistry."

The recipient of the 2009 Welch Award in Chemistry is Harry B. Gray, Arnold O. Beckman Professor of Chemistry and founding director of the Beckman Institute at the California Institute of Technology. Working in many aspects of inorganic chemistry and inorganic photochemistry. The Welch Award honors his lifetime achievements in basic research in chemistry for the betterment of humankind.

Born in Woodburn, Ky., in 1935, Dr. Gray earned his doctorate at Northwestern University and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Copenhagen. He joined the faculty at Columbia University, where he developed ligand field theory to interpret the electronic structures and substitution reactions of metal complexes. He moved to Caltech in 1966 and began his work in biological inorganic chemistry and solar photochemistry, including the development of inorganic systems for energy storage.

In the early 1980s, his group made a major discovery that contradicted previous scientific theory. He found that molecules did not have to be touching each other to transfer electrons as previously thought, but instead two molecules could complete the transfer over "long" distances of as much as two or three nanometers and across as many as 20 atoms. This discovery is significant in that the longer distances provide the opportunity to capture and store the energy created by the electron moving from one molecule to the next, rather than simply generating heat that is wasted in the "short" distance transfers.

This breakthrough forms the basis for photosynthetic systems and made possible the idea of using sunlight to create chemical energy we can store and later use as electricity. His current work is exploring how best to duplicate nature's photosynthesis, the process by which plants turn sunlight into food and concurrently produce the oxygen essential to life. Dr. Gray and his team are exploring the use of abundant inorganic (non-living) materials and sunlight to generate hydrogen fuel and clean water economically on a large scale.

Dr. Gray has published more than 750 research papers and 17 books. He has received the National Medal of Science (1986); the Linderstrom-Lang Prize (1992); the Gibbs Medal (1992); the National Academy of Sciences Award in Chemical Sciences (2003); the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry (2004); the Wolf Prize in Chemistry (2004); the City of Florence Prize in Molecular Sciences (2006); the Pupin Medal (2008); six national awards from the American Chemical Society, including the Priestley Medal (1991); and 16 honorary doctorates, including ones from Chicago, Columbia, Florence, Copenhagen and Edinburgh.

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, a foreign member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of Great Britain and the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. He has been a member of the board of directors of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation since 1994.

Dr. Gray will receive the 2009 Welch Award in October at a banquet hosted by The Welch Foundation in Houston.  At that time he will be presented with the Welch Award gold medallion and the $300,000 prize.