Professor Omar M Yaghi
Biosketch:Omar M. Yaghi received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois-Urbana (1990) with Professor Walter G. Klemperer. He was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University (1990-92) with Professor Richard H. Holm. He has been on the faculties of Arizona State University (1992-98) and University of Michigan (1999-2006). His current position is the Jean Stone Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Molecular & Medical Pharmacology at UCLA. His early accomplishments in the design and synthesis of new materials have been honored by the Solid State Chemistry Award of the American Chemical Society and Exxon Co. (1998) and the Sacconi Medal of the Italian Chemical Society (1999). He was the sole recipient of the Materials Research Society Medal for pioneering work in the theory, design, synthesis and applications of metal-organic frameworks and the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize for the best paper published in Science (2007). This year (2009), he has been the recipient of the American Chemical Society Chemistry of Materials Award and the Izzatt-Christensen Award in Macrocyclic Chemistry. His work encompasses the synthesis, structure and properties of inorganic compounds and the design and construction of new crystalline materials. He is widely known for inventing several extensive classes of new materials termed metal-organic frameworks, zeolitic imidazolate frameworks, and covalent organic frameworks. These materials have the highest surface areas and the lowest densities known to date, making them useful in clean energy technologies such as hydrogen storage, methane storage, and carbon dioxide capture. The building block approach he developed has led to an explosive growth in the creation of new materials of a diversity and multiplicity previously unknown in chemistry.
Abstract
Functional group sequences and 'codes' in MOF chemistry
