SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 27, 2011 University of Utah organic chemist Peter J. Stang has won a National Medal of Science the highest U.S. honor for a scientist or engineer and is tentatively scheduled to be honored by President Barack Obama at the White House later this year.
"I am very humbled, honored and pleased," said Stang, 69, a distinguished professor of chemistry and former dean of the University of Utah College of Science. "To date, I have had approximately 100 postdoctoral students and Ph.D. students whom I mentored, and this recognizes their work too."
Stang whose family fled the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary when he was a teenager was among seven scientists newly honored with the Medal of Science and five inventors honored with a National Medal in Technology and Innovation. The medals were announced this morning by the White House.
Stang was cited by the White House "for his creative contributions to the development of organic supramolecular chemistry and for his outstanding and unique record of public service."
President Obama said: "Each of these extraordinary scientists, engineers and inventors is guided by a passion for innovation, a fearlessness even as they explore the very frontiers of human knowledge, and a desire to make the world a better place. Their ingenuity inspires us all to reach higher and try harder, no matter how difficult the challenges we face."
Stang brings to at least four the number of researchers affiliated with the University of Utah to win the medal or a related honor:
-- Geneticist Mario Capecchi won a National Medal of Science from President George W. Bush in 2002, five years before he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
-- In 2009, President Obama conferred the related National Medal of Technology and Innovation on information age pioneer and Adobe Systems cofounder John Warnock, a University of Utah alumnus in electrical and computer engine
'/>"/>
| Contact: Lee Siegel lee.siegel@utah.edu 801-581-8993 University of Utah Source:Eurekalert |