NAM29 Plenary Lectures
The plenary sessions will consist of lectures by the recipients of the , the , and the . The award winners are summarized below, with full biographical details following.
- Jos茅 G. Santiesteban is the recipient of the Houdry Award. Read more at .
- Phillip Christopher and David Flaherty are the 2025-2026 recipients of the Emmett Award. Read more at .
- Bert Weckhuysen is the 2025 recipient of the Michel Boudart Award.
2025 Paul H. Emmett Award Winner
Phillip Christopher
University of California - Santa Barbara
Tentative title of plenary lecture:
"Atomically Dispersed Pt-Group Metal Catalysts: Active Site Structure, Function and Design"
I will highlight efforts focused on: (1) the synthesis and characterization of uniform atomically dispersed Pt active sites, (2) the development of structure-function relationships, (3) the local restructuring of these active sites due to changes in environmental conditions and (4) atomically dispersed Rh based catalysts for alkene hydroformylation.
2026 Paul H. Emmett Award Winner
David Flaherty
Georgia Institute of Technology
Tentative title of plenary lecture:
"Charting New Waters: Activities, Active Sites, and Reactive Structures in Dynamic Environments"
Catalytic reactions on solid materials form the foundation of chemical manufacturing, yet many phenomena that impact these systems challenge current understanding. Among other examples, these challenges appear vividly in the contributions of liquids and solvent molecules on catalysis upon surfaces of metal nanoparticles and within the confines of zeolites. We demonstrate that solvent-surface interactions change activities of reactive species within pores of molecular dimensions, form new reactive structures in situ, and open reaction pathways distinct from those at gas-solid interfaces.
Solvent molecules surround and interact with catalytic sites in ways that change reaction rates and selectivities by orders of magnitude. Within zeolite pores, reactions that form and consume epoxides exhibit rates and selectivities that depend on dimensions and polarity of surrounding voids in addition to the strength of covalent interactions. As a consequence, rates and selectivities span many orders of magnitude at active sites with indistinguishable electronic structure. These results indicate the topology of the catalyst changes the structure of solvation shells that form about reactive species and evolve concomitantly. Together, spectroscopy, calorimetry, and kinetics indicate that the reorganization of solvents near active sites contribute systematically to activation barriers that determine the performance of these reactions. These phenomena remain important also in the absence of a visible liquid-phase, because spontaneous condensation and pore filling leads to significant densities of solvents within micropores even at elevated temperatures.
Water and organic solvents interact with metal nanoparticles to introduce reaction pathways and reactive structures that are otherwise absent. Seemingly simple reactions among hydrogen and oxygen proceed more rapidly by heterolytic pathways that emerge in protic solvents. The kinetics of these reactions depend on the local coordination of metal atoms and reactions that communicate from a distance by electron conduction, solvent mediated charge transfer, and catalyst polarization. The variable length-scales of the processes permit bifunctional reactivity across a local collection of atoms, a complete nanoparticle, or greater distances. Reactions among metal nanoparticles and organic solvents and additives form surface organometallic structures in situ that act as redox mediators and facilitate the oxidation of hydrogen and reduction of oxygen. These themes extend to aerobic oxidations of more complex organic substrates that indicate these phenomena contribute to many classes of reactions on solid catalysts where their impact remains unrecognized.
2025 Eugene J. Houdry Award Winner
Jos茅 G. Santiesteban
ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company
Tentative title of plenary lecture:
"Zeolite-Based Catalyst Technologies at the Forefront; Tackling the pressing challenges in the energy and chemical industries today and in the future."
2025 Michel Boudart Award Winner
Bert Weckhuysen
Utrecht University
