Chemistry professor Keith Fagnou has won one of the Cottrell Scholar Awards, which entitles him to receive $100,000 U.S. to further his research and teaching. Fagnou is one of two Canadians, and one of thirteen scientists in North America, to earn the honour this year.
The Cottrell Scholar Awards, funded by Research Corporation of Tucson, Arizona, are among the most prestigious fellowships for beginning faculty members in the sciences. Each year over one hundred scientists apply to compete for the honour. The awards are named after Frederick Gardner Cottrell, scientist, inventor and philanthropist, who established Research Corporation.
Fagnou’s work is part of the “green chemistry” movement. He is interested in integrating knowledge from inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry and other related fields to solve long-standing problems in the preparation of medicinally important molecules.
In past years, Fagnou has won the 2003 Polanyi Prize, a Governor General’s Gold Medal (2003), a Premier’s Research Excellence Award (2003), and the Ichikizaki Award for Young Chemists in 2005.
