It is my hon­or to announce the 2021 recip­i­ent of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia Award.  The recip­i­ent has demon­strat­ed sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the advance­ment of Catal­y­sis. Such advance­ment can be sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal, or in orga­ni­za­tion­al lead­er­ship.  After a thor­ough review of the nom­i­nees for the award, it is my plea­sure to announce Prof. Alan M. All­geier of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Kansas as the 2021 recip­i­ent of the CCP Award!

Dr. Alan M. All­geier is one of the rare brand of indus­tri­al chemists, who com­bines the intu­itive­ness of an organ­ic chemist, prac­ti­cal prob­lem-solv­ing approach of a chem­i­cal engi­neer, and fun­da­men­tal insights of an ana­lyt­i­cal chemist. Alan is inter­na­tion­al­ly known for his exper­tise in homo­ge­neous and het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis, specif­i­cal­ly in the areas of cat­alyt­ic hydro­gena­tions, pal­la­di­um cross-cou­pling catal­y­sis for phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, con­tin­u­ous pro­cess­ing meth­ods for phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal syn­the­sis and in under­stand­ing com­plex cat­a­lyst deac­ti­va­tion phe­nom­e­na. His long-stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the devel­op­ment and deploy­ment of indus­tri­al homo­ge­neous and het­ero­ge­neous cat­a­lysts for organ­ic syn­the­sis; his lead­er­ship in process design and devel­op­ment in chem­i­cal and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­tries; his sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to cat­a­lyst char­ac­ter­i­za­tions and reac­tion mech­a­nisms by deploy­ing state-of-the-art ana­lyt­i­cal tools and tech­niques, and his untir­ing ser­vice and com­mit­ment to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty make him an excel­lent and unique can­di­date for this award. But, per­haps, more impor­tant­ly, he has had a great pos­i­tive influ­ence on the lives and pro­fes­sion­al careers of many, many sci­en­tists and engi­neers – and this impact will prob­a­bly endure for years to come.

Please join me in con­grat­u­lat­ing Prof. All­geier for this award.

Parag Shah

Past-Chair Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia