Professor Jens Kehlet Nørskov receives the award in recognition of his groundbreaking research in surface reactivity and heterogeneous catalysis.
Professor Jens Kehlet Nørskov, DTU Physics will receive the Gabor A. Somorjai Award for Creative Research in Catalysis 2009. The award is given primarily to US citizens, and is awarded in recognition of outstanding theoretical, experimental, or developmental research resulting in the advancement of understanding or application of catalysis. Jens Kehlet Nørskov receives the Somorjai-award for his pioneering work in computer-based heterogeneous catalysis that in several instances has led to the development of new ideas for catalysists for e.g. ammonia synthesis and fuel-cells.
Jens Kehlet Nørskov will be giving his Award Address on ‘Structural and electronic effects in the reactivity of metal surfaces’ at the 237th ACS National Meeting & Exposition in Salt Lake City on Sunday, March 22, 2009.
On Jens Kehlet Nørskov
Professor Nørskov completed his master’s degree in chemistry and physics at Aarhus University, and earned a PhD degree there in theoretical physics in 1979. He then served as a research fellow, postdoctoral associate and staff scientist at various institutions – incl. IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in N.Y., and Haldor Topsøe. In 1987, Nørskov began serving as a research professor at DTU and was named professor of theoretical physics there in 1992. Today, he hads up The Lundbeck Foundation’s Center for Atomic-scale Materials Design as well as NanoDTU, DTU’s center for Nanotechnology with more than 250 researchers. Just recently, in December 2008, Jens Kehlet Nørskov received DKK 120 million from the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. The money will go towards establishing a new research center at DTU, where researchers will focus on developing methods for the transformation of sustainable energy sources such as the sun and the wind into fuels with the help of new and improved catalysts.