The Glenn T. Seaborg Medal is an annual award established in 1987 by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry. It is the highest honor the department bestows on an individual for distinguished contributions to science, technical innovation, and/or public service in science. The medal honors Nobel Prize-winning chemist Glenn T. Seaborg, a UCLA alumnus and its first recipient. Each year, the medalist is chosen by an executive committee of the UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry.
The medal has been awarded to prominent scientists including 11 Nobel laureates. Its recipients and award presentations have been covered by Chemical & Engineering News, including coverage of the medals awarded to David Eisenberg in 2004, Ronald Evans in 2005, Stan Williams in 2007, and Joan Valentine in 2008. The Daily Bruin also covered Richard Heck's receipt of the medal in 2011, describing it as an annual UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry award for achievements in chemistry.
Medalists Year Awardee Institution 1987 Glenn T. Seaborg (Nobel Laureate) UC Berkeley 1988 Warren W. Kaeding Mobil Chemical 1989 Donald J. Cram (Nobel Laureate) UCLA 1990 George Gregory Products Research and Chemical Corp. 1991 John D. Roberts Caltech 1992 Ralph H. Bauer Bauer Investments 1993 R. Bruce Merrifield (Nobel Laureate) Rockefeller University 1994 George S. Hammond Allied Signal Corporation 1995 George B. Rathmann ICOS Corporation 1996 Mary L. Good US Dept of Commerce 1997 M. Frederick Hawthorne UCLA 1998 Paul D. Boyer (Nobel Laureate) UCLA 1999 John P. McTague Ford Research Laboratory 2000 Daniel E. Koshland, Jr. UC Berkeley 2001 James B. Peter Specialty Laboratories 2002 Richard E. Smalley (Nobel Laureate) Rice University 2003 Alexander Pines and Ad Bax UC Berkeley 2004 David Eisenberg UCLA 2005 Ronald M. Evans Salk Institute 2006 David A. Evans Harvard University 2007 R. Stanley Williams Hewlett-Packard Laboratories 2008 Joan S. Valentine UCLA 2009 Mostafa A. El-Sayed Georgia Institute of Technology 2010 Robert Tjian UC Berkeley 2011 Richard F. Heck (Nobel Laureate) University of Delaware 2012 Harold E. Varmus (Nobel Laureate) National Cancer Institute 2013 Kendall N. Houk UCLA 2014 Fred Wudl and Linda Wudl University of California, Santa Barbara 2015 Stefan W. Hell (Nobel Laureate) Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences 2016 Michael E. Jung UCLA2017William Gelbart UCLA2018Robert Glaeser and Richard Henderson (Nobel Laureate) UC Berkeley and MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology2019Paul Alivisatos UC Berkeley2020No Medalist due to pandemic2021No Medalist due to pandemic2022Carolyn R. Bertozzi (Nobel Laureate)Stanford University2023-24Juli Feigon UCLA2025Fraser Stoddart (Nobel Laureate) Note: Stoddart was selected as the 2025 medalist but died before the scheduled event, and UCLA proceeded with the symposium and dinner as a memorial celebration; his daughter Fiona McCubbin accepted the medal on his behalf.Northwestern University2026Richard KanerUCLA See also
List of chemistry awards List of previous Seaborg Medalists, including links to photos from each year’s Seaborg Symposium.
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