Allen Bard, the Norman Hackerman-Welch Regents Chair in Chemistry and director of the Center for Electrochemistry in the College of Natural Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin, was awarded the Torbern Bergman Medal by the Analytical Division of the Swedish Chemical Society on June 9 in Stockholm.
He shared the recognition with fellow UT Austin faculty member Adam Heller, chemical engineering research professor and professor emeritus in the Cockrell School of Engineering. The medal, awarded biennially since 1967, is one of the most prestigious international awards in analytical chemistry and recognizes achievements of great importance in the field.
Allen Bard is one of the world's top researchers in the field of electrochemistry, the study of how electric currents affect chemical reactions and vice versa. Electrochemistry is used to, among other things, develop better batteries, measure the purity of drinking water, control corrosion and extract and purify metals. Bard and his coworkers have pioneered several novel methods for imaging chemical reactions, in some cases, down to the level of individual molecules. He has also been a leader by training a large number of students and associates. He has worked as mentor and collaborator with 75 Ph.D. students, 17 M.S. students, 150 postdoctoral associates, and numerous visiting scientists.
Bard received a B.S. in chemistry from the City College of New York in 1955, an M.A. in chemistry from Harvard University in 1956 and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard in 1958. He joined the faculty at The University of Texas at Austin in 1958. Bard has published more than 900 peer-reviewed research papers and 75 book chapters and other publications, and he has received more than 23 patents. He is the recipient of the Wolf Prize, the Enrico Fermi Award and a National Medal of Science, among numerous honors.
For more on Dr. Heller's accomplishments, see Adam Heller Awarded Torbern Bergman Medal in Analytical Chemistry.
The medal, named after 18th-century Swedish chemist and distinguished teacher Torbern Bergman, was presented at the 2014 Analytical Days Conference.