Professor Sir Martyn Poliakoff, in the School of Chemistry at The University of Nottingham, has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as a AAAS Fellow is an honour bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.
The recognition is for Professor Sir Martyn’s influential research in inorganic, physical and green chemistry, for promoting science diplomacy and for outstanding communication of science to the general public.
This year 391 members have been awarded this honour by AAAS because of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. New Fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin on Saturday, 18 February at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the 2017 AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston, Mass.
This year’s AAAS Fellows will be formally announced in the AAAS News & Notes section of the journal Science on 25 November 2016.
Sir Martyn said: “I am delighted by this award. I see it as an honour not only for myself but for the School of Chemistry and our University. I hope that it will help raise our international profile even higher.”
The tradition of AAAS Fellows began in 1874
Currently, members can be considered for the rank of Fellow if nominated by the steering groups of the Association’s 24 sections, or by any three Fellows who are current AAAS members (so long as two of the three sponsors are not affiliated with the nominee’s institution), or by the AAAS chief executive officer. Fellows must have been continuous members of AAAS for four years by the end of the calendar year in which they are elected.
Each steering group reviews the nominations of individuals within its respective section and a final list is forwarded to the AAAS Council, which votes on the aggregate list.
The Council is the policymaking body of the Association, chaired by the AAAS president, and consisting of the members of the board of directors, the retiring section chairs, delegates from each electorate and each regional division, and two delegates from the National Association of Academies of Science.
Jonathan Hirst, Professor of Computational Chemistry and Head of the School of Chemistry, said: “Martyn is a fantastic ambassador for our School, for our University and more broadly for UK science. So it is particularly pleasing to see his science and his advocacy recognised by one of the leading international bodies of science.”
This accolade for his work by the AAAS is just the latest in a string of awards, titles and honours bestowed on Sir Martyn for a life time’s pioneering work in the field of green chemistry. In 2011 he was nominated as the new Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, one of the science world’s highest honours.
A life time of achievement
Sir Martyn has embraced social media and become a familiar face to his millions of loyal followers of the award winning Periodic Videos. In 2012 he was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Nyholm Prize for Education for his work on the Periodic Table of Videos.
The same year he was elected as a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and in 2015 an Associate Fellow of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences.
In 2013, he won the Universitas 21 (U21) Award for Internationalisation. The award recognised his individual efforts to further internationalisation and build relations between U21’s leading global network of research-intensive universities. This year, he was awarded the Lord Lewis Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
In 2015 he was knighted in the Queen’s New Year Honours for services to Chemical Sciences in recognition of his contribution as a global leader in green and sustainable chemistry. He saw this as an honour not only for himself but also for the colleagues, co-workers, students and technical staff who have helped him so much over the years.