U OF W PROF WINS AWARD
$20K for energy research
Uwindsor assistant professor Marcus Drover has been awarded the 2020 John Charles Polanyi Prize in Chemistry in recognition of his work developing cleaner energy sources as an early-career researcher.
The award, valued at $20,000, is given to five Ontario researchers in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and economic science.
Each year since 1987, the Council of Ontario Universities has recognized five researchers in the early stages of their careers in honour of Dr. Polanyi, the 1986 recipient of the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
This is only the second time a Uwindsor researcher has received this award. In 1996, Sang-chul Suh from the Department of Economics won.
“It is an incredible honour to win such a prestigious prize in a highly competitive pool of early-career researchers — and moreover, to be the first to win in the natural sciences in the history of Uwindsor,” said Drover.
“It's an incredible feeling.” Drover, hired in 2019, is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
As a synthetic chemist, Drover says he “likes to make molecules with a purpose, molecules with the potential to combat the global energy crisis as rates of fossil fuel consumption continue to skyrocket.
“To ensure the well-being of future generations, it is imperative that we work to curtail greenhouse gas emissions, invest in alternative energy sources, and discover superior and more efficient routes for the synthesis of specialty chemicals, such as pharmaceuticals for health, agrochemicals to enhance crop yield, and advanced chemicals such as those found in organic light-emitting polymers for display technologies.”
In spring 2020, Drover received a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Discovery Grant and early-career supplement for his research program, “New Technologies for Sustainable Chemistry: An Organometallic Future in Clean Energy.” Drover said his research team believes in an “organometallic future” to clean energy, employing chemical synthesis and metal-based reactivity to target these goals.
“We are looking at alternative fuels, and energy-based research by revamping and reusing waste products and turning them into value-added molecules and sources of energy.”
When the academic conference season shut down in March in response to the pandemic, Drover co-founded an online chemistry discussion group that allowed chemists to share research and forge new collaborative partnerships. The Global Inorganic Discussion Weekend continues to draw a crowd and has now hosted more than 80 speakers from around the world.