The American Chemical Society (ACS) and the Korean Chemical Society (KCS) have established a three-year partnership to honor outstanding Korean chemists. The chosen scientist will be given the ACS-KCS Excellence Award, a cash prize, three years of complimentary access to SciFinder, and a three-year membership to the American Chemical Society. The award is sponsored by the Chemical Abstracts Service, which is a division of the ACS. This partnership is concerned with the advancement of science in Korea by recognizing major achievers in the field. ACS membership stands at 157,000 and ACS Publications include the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, and the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. ACS Executive Director and CEO, Dr. Thomas Connelly Jr. said that the ACS is honored to maintain close ties with the KCS and appreciates the opportunity to promote scientific advancement in Korea.
The first ever recipient of the ACS-KCS Excellence Award is Dr. Sukbok Chang, who is currently the director of IBS, a professor at KAIST, and an associate editor of ACS Catalysis. Dr. Chang is being recognized for his work on catalytic systems that allow for the highly selective and efficient C-H functionalization of low reacting molecules. Part of the ACS-KCS collaboration includes a symposium which was held during the Korean Chemical Society’s spring meeting in Kintex, Goyang. At the meeting, ACS Publications held a symposium under the theme “Chemistry for Next-Generation Materials and Life Sciences”. The symposium featured keynote presentations from global leaders in the field. It was coordinated by Joon Won Park, POSTECH and chair of KCS’ Division of International Cooperation, Jwa-Min Nam, Seoul National University and vice-chair of KCS’ Division of International Cooperation, Carolyn Bertozzi, Stanford University and editor-in-chief of ACS Central Science, and Christopher Chang, and senior editor of ACS Central Science.
Though this is the first time ACS Publications is sponsoring the symposium at KCS’s spring meeting, both societies are committed to working together for the advancement of science. The Chemical Abstracts Service will continue to support the ACS-KCS Excellence Award for at least another two years.
