University of Colorado at Boulder Professor James T. Hynes of the chemistry and biochemistry department has been awarded the 2004 Hirschfelder Prize in Theoretical Chemistry, the largest award in the field.
Carrying a stipend of $10,000, the Hirschfelder Prize is given annually by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Theoretical Chemistry Institute. Hynes was cited in part for his contributions to the theory of chemical reaction rates and mechanisms and of vibrational dynamics in solution.
He also was cited for his research on the heterogeneous chemical reactions that are important in stratospheric ozone depletion.
Hynes, who joined the CU-Boulder faculty in1971, also is research director in the department of chemistry at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, an arm of France's National Center for Scientific Research.
The Hirschfelder Prize is named after the late Joseph O. Hirschfelder, the founder of UW-Madison's Theoretical Chemistry Institute and a guiding force in modern theoretical chemistry.
Since its inception in 1991, the Hirschfelder Prize has been awarded to 13 other chemists, three of whom were Nobel Prize winners. Of the 13, two have since been awarded Nobel Prizes for their research and a third won a Nobel Prize prior to receiving the Hirschfelder Prize.