The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry solicits nominations for the 2021 John and Martha Morris Award for Outstanding Achievement in the History of Modern Chemistry or the History of the Chemical Industry. This award honours the memory of John and Martha Morris, the late parents of Peter Morris, the former editor of Ambix, who has contributed the endowment for this award. The recipient chosen to receive the Morris Award will be expected to deliver a lecture at a meeting of SHAC, where the awardee will be presented with an appropriate framed photograph, picture or document and the sum of £300. The award is international in scope, and nominations are invited from anywhere in the world. The first Morris Award was given to Professor Raymond Stokes (University of Glasgow) for his path-breaking work on the German chemical industry. The second award was given to Professor Mary Jo Nye (Oregon State University) for her work on physical chemistry and the boundary between physics and chemistry in the twentieth century. The third award was given to Dr Anthony S. Travis (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) for his contributions to the history of the chemical industry (history of the dye industry and Henrich Caro) and the history of modern chemistry (history of chemical instrumentation and the history of groundwater pollution). The fourth award was given to Professor Yasu Furukawa for his work on the history of chemistry and its relationship with the chemical industry, specifically for Inventing Polymer Science: Staudinger, Carothers, and the Emergence of Macromolecular Chemistry (1998) and Chemists’ Kyoto School: Gen-itsu Kita and Japan’s Chemistry (2017).
A complete nomination consists of
a complete curriculum vitae for the nominee, including biographical data, educational background, awards, honours, list of publications, and other service to the profession;
a letter of nomination summarising the nominee’s outstanding scholarly achievement in either the history of the chemical industry or in the history of recent chemistry (post -1945) and the unique contributions that merit this award; and
names of two or three individuals for the panel to contact for further information if needed.