The American Chemical Society (ACS) Publications Division and ACS Central Science are proud to announce the winner of the ACS Central Science Disruptors & Innovators Prize: Clare Grey, D.Phil., FRS, of Cambridge University. Since 2020, the ACS Central Science Disruptors & Innovators Prize has recognized individuals who, through their innovative research, are advancing the central science of chemistry.
"I'm honored and excited to have won this award - a wonderful recognition of not just me, but also the students and postdocs who have worked with me in both the U.S. and the U.K. to make this happen," says Grey. "It is also great to see my fundamental science being appreciated in this way."
Grey is the Geoffrey Moorhouse Gibson Professor of Chemistry at Cambridge University and is a fellow of Pembroke College Cambridge and the U.K.'s Royal Society. She received a B.A. and D.Phil. in chemistry from Oxford University. She was the founding director of the Northeast Center for Chemical Energy Storage - an Energy Frontier Research Center of the U.S. Department of Energy - which she started while a professor at Stony Brook University. She is currently the director of the EPSRC Centre of Advanced Materials for Integrated Energy Systems and a principal investigator at the Faraday Institution. Grey is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Richard R. Ernst Prize in Magnetic Resonance, the Royal Society's Hughes Medal and the Körber European Science Prize for her contributions to the optimization of batteries using NMR spectroscopy. She is a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her current research interests include the use of solid-state NMR and diffraction-based methods to determine structure-function relationships in materials for energy storage (batteries and supercapacitors) and conversion (fuel cells). She is a co-founder of the company Nyobolt, which seeks to develop batteries for fast-charge applications.
"It is my tremendous honor to present the 2022 ACS Central Science Disruptors & Innovators Prize to Professor Clare Grey, in recognition of her pioneering work in fundamental studies of rechargeable battery materials using solid-state NMR methodology," says Carolyn Bertozzi, Ph.D., editor in chief of ACS Central Science. "Grey is an inspiration to the scientific community and her work perfectly embodies the power of chemistry as the central science."
"I am delighted to congratulate Professor Grey on this tremendous achievement," says James Milne, Ph.D., president, ACS Publications. "Her work is advancing the field of chemistry and with it, advancing technologies that will have a profound impact around the world. I, as well as the rest of the chemistry community, look forward to following her research discoveries."
Grey will accept the prize at an upcoming virtual symposium, during which she will present a Disruptors Lecture. More details can be found on the ACS Central Science Disruptors & Innovators Prize website.
