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Nobel Laureate Sir Harold Kroto joins FSU faculty
BY JILL ELISH
Five Nobel Prize winners have served on the faculty of Florida State University over the years. Now a sixth has joined FSU.
Sir Harold Kroto, who won the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry, has joined the FSU faculty as a Francis Eppes Professor and will arrive on campus in October. Kroto comes to FSU from the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom.
"We are thrilled that Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto will be joining the department of chemistry and biochemistry," said President T.K. Wetherell. "His pioneering work in nanoscience will impact the ongoing research and teaching here at FSU and across the nation. His dedication to research, teaching and educational outreach will benefit the university and community at large."
Kroto is not an unfamiliar face at FSU. Last spring, he served as a visiting professor here and taught graduate classes on spectroscopy and interstellar chemistry and delivered lectures to groups ranging from fourth-graders to faculty.
"FSU has made a most generous and attractive offer that will enable me to come to Tallahassee and not only open up some new research avenues that I am keen to explore but also maintain the considerable momentum that I have built up over the past 10 years in my international educational outreach work," Kroto said. "While at FSU this spring, my wife and I could not have been made more welcome, and I look forward to working here."
Kroto earned the Nobel Prize for his co-discovery of Buckminster-fullerenes or "buckyballs" -- molecules consisting of 60 carbon atoms in the shape of a soccer ball.
At the time of the discovery, Kroto was already well known for his assignment of the spectra of several unusual molecules later identified in outer space.
"I am personally delighted that a scientist with Sir Harry's accomplishments and vision for the future of science and education is coming to FSU," said Donald Foss, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. "He will play a key role in the development of the university's initiatives in bionanotechnology, and he is a major addition to the intellectual capital of Florida and the nation."
The chemistry and biochemistry department was particularly interested in enticing Kroto to join the department because of his outreach programs and outstanding innovations in teaching, said chair Naresh Dalal.
"The next generation of FSU's freshman chemistry students should be inspired by his electric enthusiasm," Dalal said.
The Francis Eppes Professorship is a distinction given to only a few professors at FSU who are at the very top of their field. While at FSU, Kroto also will serve on the board of scientific governors of the new Scripps Research Institute in South Florida.
Kroto will join J. Robert Schrieffer, university eminent scholar professor and chief scientist at the National High Magnetic Field laboratory, as the second Nobel Prize winner currently serving on the FSU faculty. Others to serve at FSU were Konrad Bloch, human sciences; James Buchanan, economics; Paul Dirac, physics; and Robert Sanderson Mulliken, chemical physics.
Kroto earned his doctorate in chemistry in 1964 from the University of Sheffield for research on high resolution electronic spectra of free radicals produced by flash photolysis. He started his academic career at the University of Sussex at Brighton in 1967, where he became a professor in 1985 and, in 1991, was made a Royal Society Research Professor.
In 2001, he won the Royal Society's prestigious Michael Faraday Award. The award is given annually to a scientist who has done the most to further public communication of science, engineering or technology in the United Kingdom.
He is the former president of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the co-founder of the Vega Science Trust. Established in 1994, the trust's mission is to create a broadcast platform for the science, engineering and technology communities to enable them to better communicate about their fields of expertise using TV and the Internet.
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