Chemical Dynamics Award 2011 Winner

Awarded for his pioneering work in the area of photochemistry and in the elucidation of energy transfer mechanisms for the efficient use of solar energy.

About the Winner

Anthony Harriman was educated in the West Midlands before starting his career in artificial photosynthesis at the Royal Institution in London in 1974, working under Sir George Porter. He spent a total of 14 years at the Royal Institution, including terms as Dewar Research Fellow, 1977-88, and Assistant Director of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory, 1982-88. 

He moved to the University of Texas at Austin in 1988 to become director of the Center for Fast Kinetics Research. This was followed by a short stay at the Université Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg. In 1999, he took up the position of Professor of Physical Chemistry at Newcastle University. He has maintained a strong interest in artificial photosynthesis.

Among his many awards are the Corday-Morgan Medal and Prize, 1984, and the first Prix Grammitakis-Neumann en Photochimie, 1985. He has held numerous visiting professorships, including appointments in Strasbourg, Tokyo and Washington. He spent one year as a visiting scientist at the National Institutes of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg. 

He has published more than 400 papers in the areas of molecular photophysics, artificial photosynthesis and electron/energy transfer, reaching an h-index of 66. He holds numerous patents for applications of photochemistry and photophysics and is director of the Molecular Photonics Laboratory at Newcastle University. Recent research has focussed on aspects of electronic energy transfer in artificial networks.