Kim Renee Dunbar Receives 2019 Basolo Award for Standout Contributions to Science
Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Texas A&M University Kim R. Dunbar will receive the 2019 Basolo Medal for Outstanding Research in Inorganic Chemistry this fall. The award recognizes her landmark contributions to science and the achievements of her more than three-decade career.
Kim Renee Dunbar has spent more than 30 years furthering the scientific community’s understanding of chemistry, especially organic chemistry. A recipient of many distinguished awards, Dunbar is set to receive this year’s Basolo Medal for Outstanding Research in Inorganic Chemistry.
The Fred Basolo Medal was formed in appreciation of the beloved chemist’s contributions to inorganic chemistry while at Northwestern University. Fred Basolo was the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Emeritus Professor of Chemistry and served as president of the ACS in 1983. His former students established the award, recognizing the standard Basolo set for the department when arriving at the university in 1946. Today, the chemistry department at Northwestern University is still recognized as one of the greatest and most respected in the nation.
Each year, Northwestern University presents the Fred Basolo Medal to a distinguished contributor to science such as Kim Renee Dunbar. It signifies not only landmark individuals behind the advancement of science, but also the role models that inspire the students and future researchers of chemistry. The award is co-sponsored by the American Chemical Society Chicago Section.
“I am deeply honored to receive this medal. The list of previous recipients include many of my inorganic chemistry idols, mentors and friends,” says Kim Renee Dunbar. “I knew Fred Basolo quite well, and he took an interest in me when I was a young professor. He and I had many long talks, and he regaled me with stories about the history of coordination chemistry. He was a wonderful role model and an inspiration to me.”
Dunbar joined the Texas A&M Department of Chemistry faculty in 1999 after serving 12 years as a faculty member at Michigan State University. She is the holder of the Davidson Chair in Science and was named a University Distinguished Professor in 2007. For years, her work has specialized in synthetic, structural and physical inorganic and bioinorganic chemistry, and has gone on to create new solutions in new magnetic and conducting materials as well as anticancer agents and metal-based drugs.
Additionally, Kim Renee Dunbar was the first-ever female chair holder in the history of the Texas A&M College of Science, and she is a recipient of the ACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry.
The research she conducts in synthetic and structural inorganic chemistry is funded by respected institutions like the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, the ACS-Petroleum Research Fund and the Welch Foundation. Dunbar’s use of structure and bonding relationships to explain physical and chemical phenomena has vastly improved the research and work of scientists worldwide, and she will be honored with this year’s Basolo Medal for it.