Krzysztof Matyjaszewski
Krzysztof "Kris" Matyjaszewski (; born April 8, 1950) is a Polish-American chemist. He is the J.C. Warner Professor of the Natural Sciences at the Carnegie Mellon University Matyjaszewski is best known for the discovery of atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), a novel method of polymer synthesis that has revolutionized the way macromolecules are made. Matyjaszewski was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2006 for expanding the capabilities of controlled/living polymerizations and developing ATRP, a robust catalytic process for the radical polymerization of monomers. In 2011 he was a co-winner of the prestigious  Wolf Prize in Chemistry. Education and career. Matyjaszewski began studying chemistry at Lodz University of Technology in late 1960s and later graduated from the Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School (now Bauman Moscow State Technical University) in Moscow. He received his doctorate from the Center of Molecular and Macromolecular Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in 1976 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Florida in 1977. From 1978 to 1984, he was a research associate of the Polish Academy of Sciences. From 1984 to 1985, Matyjaszewski held appointments at the University of Paris, first as a research  associate and then as a visiting professor. In 1985, he joined the chemistry department at Carnegie Mellon University. He founded and currently directs the university's Center for Macromolecular Engineering. This Center is funded both by an active consortium and government agencies, including the National Science Foundation. In 1998, Matyjaszewski was appointed the J.C. Warner Professor of Natural Sciences. In 2004 he was named a University Professor, the highest distinction faculty can achieve at Carnegie Mellon. Mayjaszewski is also an adjunct professor in Carnegie Mellon's department of materials science and engineering. From 1994 to 1998, Matyjaszewski served as head  of the Department of Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon and assisted in recruiting additional faculty with strengths in polymer chemistry. At the same time, he formed a research consortium with various industrial corporations to expand the understanding of controlled radical polymerization, including ATRP, and accelerate the transfer of this technology to different commercial applications. A second consortium, the CRP Consortium, formed under his leadership in 2001, continues and expands these efforts, training university and industrial scientists in procedures for responsive polymeric material development. The same year, Matyjaszewski became an adjunct professor at Polish Academy of Sciences and at the Department of  Chemical and Petroleum Engineering of the University of Pittsburgh. Matyjaszewski is a co-inventor on 52 issued U.S. patented technologies and holds 142 international patents. One of the leading educators in the field of polymer chemistry, Matyjaszewski has mentored more than 200 undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students since joining Carnegie Mellon. He has co-authored 20 books, 90 book chapters and more than 1000 peer-reviewed scientific papers. His work has been cited in the scientific literature more than 89,000 times, making him one of the most cited chemists in the world. In 2019, Matyjaszewski and Daniel M. Neumark joined  the Editorial Advisory Board of the Chinese Chemical Society. Matyjaszewski has received numerous awards for his work, including the 2017 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry, 2017 Medema Lecture Award, 2015 Dreyfus Prize in the Chemical Sciences, 2014 National Institute of Materials Science (Japan) Award, 2012 Dannie Heineman Prize from the Göttingen Academy of Sciences, 2011 Wolf Prize in Chemistry and the 2009 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award. He has been honored by the American Chemical Society (ACS) with the 2015 Charles G. Overberger Prize, and is an honorary member of the Chinese Chemical Society. Matyjaszewski's work has been recognized  in his native country of Poland. In 2004, he received the Annual Prize of the Foundation of Polish Science, the most prestigious scientific award in Poland, referred to as the Polish Nobel Prize. In 2005 he became a foreign member of the Polish Academy of Science, and in 2007, he received an honorary degree from Lodz University of Technology in Poland. He has also received honorary degrees from the Technion, Israel, the University of Ghent, Belgium, Russian Academy of Sciences, University of Athens, Greece, Polytechnic Institute in Toulouse, France, Pusan National University in South Korea., Universite P. & M. Curie, Sorbonne  in Paris, and Technion in Haifa, Israel.