The School of Chemistry in Birmingham has always been at the forefront of research. Four of our alumni and staff have been recognised with Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Medicine. Most recently, in 2016 Professor Sir J. Fraser Stoddart was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the fundamental discoveries of mechanical bonds being wielded to make molecular machines.
Please follow the links below to find out more.
Professor Jon Preece (right) awarding a gift to Professor Sir J. Fraser Stoddart (left) in honour of his Nobel Prize award in 2016
Nobel Prize laureates
Prizes and awards
Atassi Prizes 2024
The School of Chemistry is incredibly grateful to Professor Zouhair Atassi for creating the Atassi Prizes which are celebrated with a prize symposium at the start of each academic year. The M. Zouhair Atassi Lecture helps bring bright minds in Biochemistry from across the globe to Birmingham to share their research and inspire and enthuse future generations of researchers. The M. Zouhair Atassi Award and the M. Zouhair Atassi Student Awards respectively, recognise outstanding, original, innovative contributions in biochemistry, chemical biology or molecular sciences. This years awards featured:
- 2024 Atassi Prize Lecturer - Professor Anna Mapp of the University of Michigan – Lessons from Nature: a general strategy for drugging transcription factor complexes
- 2024 Atassi Research Paper Prize Winner - Tianlai Xia of the O’Reilly Group – Tuning the Functionality of Self-Assembled 2D Platelets in the Third Dimension
- 2024 Atassi Thesis Prize Winner - Dr Giulia Molinaro of the Peacock/Britton Groups – Artificial metallopeptides as MRI contrast agents
Professor Peter Slater
Dr Maria Chiara Arno
Dr Thomas Auvray
- 2024 - Green Chemistry Student Award (the Nina McClelland Memorial Award) from the American Chemical Society.
Dr Elizabeth Driscoll
ReLib Team
- 2024 - Horizon Prize from the RSC. The team is a multidisciplinary collaboration between universities of Edinburgh, Leicester, Newcastle, Oxford and Imperial College and led by the University of Birmingham.
Dr Ruchi Gupta
Dr Andy Jupp
Dr Laura Hancock
Professor Rachel O'Reilly
- 2023 - Elected as an Honorary Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge
- 2022 - Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)
- 2022 - ACS Global Mentor Award
- 2020 – Royal Society of Chemistry Corday-Morgan Prize
- 2020 – Royal Society of Chemistry Polymer Chemistry lectureship award
- 2019 – UK Finalist (Chemistry) in the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists
- 2018 – Industry-Academia Collaboration of the Year (with BP) from the Royal Society of Chemistry
- 2018 – Journal of Polymer Science Innovation award2018 – Covestro Distinguished Lectureship from Texas A&M University
Dr Sarah Pike
Professor Andrew Dove
- 2022 - RSC Corday-Morgan Prize
- 2022 - Elected as a Fellow of American Chemical Society Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering
- 2019 – MacroGroup UK Medal
- 2018 – RSC Emerging Technologies Award
- 2018 – RSC Norman Heatley Award
Dr Lucy Clark
- 2022 - RSC Materials Chemistry Division Early Career prize
- 2022 - Awarded the Florence Price Award for Outsnaing Early Career Academic.
- 2020 - Lucy Clark has been awarded the 2020 Physical Crystallography Prize from the British Crystallographic Association/ IOP. It is awarded for the “best recently published work by a person in the early stages of their career, working in the field of Physical Crystallography, whose research is expected to make a significant impact in the field”.
Dr Dylan Williams, Dr Laura Hancock, Dr Natalie Rowley and Dr John Wilkie
- 2023 – Outstanding Education Support Team - HEFi Teaching and Learning Awards
Dr Phil Craven and the CTL Team
- 2022 – LearningSci Teaching Innovation Award
Dr Laura Hancock
- 2022 - Advance HE Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence
Dr Nic Pearce
- 2022 - Atassi Research Prize
Dr Connor Stubbs
- 2022 – Atassi PhD Thesis Prize
Dr John Wilkie and DoYs
- 2022 – Support for Student Education, HEFi Awards
Dr Hamish Yeung
- 2022 – CCDC Chemical Crystallpgraphy Prize for Young Scientists
Fellowships
- Dr Javier Castells-Gill - Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (2023)
- Dr Adam Michalchuk - Wilhelm-Ostwald Fellowship by the BAM (2023)
- Dr Georgia Orton - Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (2023)
- Prof Tim Albrecht - Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute (2022)
- Prof Andrew Dove - PMSE (ACS) Fellowship (2022)
- Dr Otto Mustonen and Dr Stephen Fielden - EC Leverhulme Fellow (2022)
- Dr Andrew Jupp - Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF) 2020
- Dr Joshua Makepeace - UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships (FLF) 2019
- Dr Sarah Pike - UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships (FLF) 2019