Associate Professor Paul McGonigal of Durham University has been awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry’s 2022 Harrison–Meldola Memorial Prize. This long-running and prestigious prize is awarded for the most meritorious and promising original investigations in chemistry and published results of those investigations. Paul has been selected as a worthy winner this year ‘for innovative studies of dynamic processes in organic functional materials.’
Paul spent a period in the Stoddart Group at Northwestern University as a Fulbright Scholar and Research Associate from 2012 to 2015. During that period, he helped to pioneer the development of artificial molecular pumps and solid-state molecular machines.
Since departing Northwestern, his organic functional materials research program has taken him into the realms of shapeshifting molecules, fluorescent molecular rotors, and repairable low-friction surfaces. Winning this particular RSC prize puts him in the esteemed company of past winners such as Professors Jon Steed, Chris Hunter, and Jeremy Sanders.
Pictured below – 2022 Harrison–Meldola Memorial Prize winner Paul McGonigal with his Durham University research group: