Science Advisory Board
Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board and Co-Founder
A member of the Cornell faculty since 1997, Dr. Coates is an international leader in the field of polymer synthesis. He received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Stanford University in 1994 and was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow with Robert H. Grubbs at the California Institute of Technology. His main research interests are the design, synthesis, characterization, and applications of polymers, with an emphasis on catalytic transformations and the control of stereochemistry. Dr. Coates was selected by MIT's Technology Review as one of 100 young innovators under 35 "who exemplify the spirit of innovation in science, technology, business and the arts."
Dr. Fredrickson is Director of the Mitsubishi Chemical Center for Advanced Materials and Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he has served on the faculty since 1990. He is a leading authority on theoretical polymer physics and has been recognized by major research prizes from the American Chemical and Physical Societies, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and by election to the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Fredrickson is author of more than 200 journal publications and has chaired technical advisory boards at Dow Chemical, Mitsubishi Chemical, and Allergan Medical.
Professor Frechet is the Henry Rapoport Chair of Organic Chemistry at the University ofCalifornia, Berkeley. He has active research programs in life and materials sciences at both University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Jean was born in France and received his first university degrees in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the Institut de Chimie et Physique Industrielles in Lyon, France, before coming to the United States for graduate studies in organic and polymer chemistry at the State University of New York, College of Forestry, and Syracuse University. He joined the Chemistry Faculty at the University of Ottawa in Canada in 1973 and remained there until 1987 when he became IBM Professor of Polymer Chemistry at Cornell University. In 1995, he was named to the Peter J. Debye Chair of Chemistry at Cornell University. In 1997, Jean joined the Chemistry Faculty at the University of California, Berkeley and was named the Henry Rapoport Chair of Organic Chemistry in 2003. In addition he is a principal investigator in the Materials Science Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and is Director of the Organic and Macromolecular Facility for the Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Professor Grubbs is currently Victor and Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, where he has served on the faculty since 1978. In 2005 Professor Grubbs shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Prof. Richard R. Schrock of MIT and Prof. Yves Chauvin of France for discoveries that have enabled industry to produce drugs and advanced plastics more efficiently while minimizing waste products. He is also a founder, director, or advisor to numerous technology companies, including Materia, Cyrano Sciences, Pharmacopeia, Insert Therapeutics, and Calhoun Vision.
Dr. Kramer is Professor of Materials and Chemical Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he has served on the faculty since 1997. His current research activities focus on understanding the fundamentals that control the structure, properties and processing of block copolymers. He has been honored with election as a Fellow of the American Physical Society and American Association for the Advancement of Science and as a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He received the 2008 Cooperative Research Award from the American Chemical Society. Dr. Kramer has served on the technical advisory boards of DSM, Henkel, Abbott Vascular, Artificial Muscle Inc., Solaria, and Mitsubishi Chemical.
Director of the Macromolecules and Interfaces Institute at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Dr. Turner's scientific interests focus on macromolecular chemistry, new materials, and nanocomposites. He is the author of over 70 scientific papers, and holds over 75 patents.