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Arthur W. Adamson Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Surface Chemistry

January 23, 2006 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 84, Issue 4

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Credit: Photo By R. Matthews, Princeton University
Bernasek
Credit: Photo By R. Matthews, Princeton University
Bernasek

Sponsored by Occidental Petroleum

Steven L. Bernasek has been inquisitive ever since he was a little kid. "I grew up in the Sputnik era and liked rockets and airplanes and enjoyed building things," says the Princeton University chemistry professor. Bernasek's father had similar interests. They enjoyed launching rockets together, and the young boy's parents encouraged his inquisitive nature.

Raised on a small farm near Holton, Kan., Bernasek had access to a little shed-a bunkhouse, as the Bernaseks called it-which he used as a "laboratory" with his parents' blessings. "My dad helped me set up my chemistry things in there-perhaps to keep the smell out of the house," he reflects.

In his modest facilities, Bernasek used to conduct experiments that he read about in books. "I'd weigh things out and heat them until they turned to ash and then weigh them again," he recalls. "Or sometimes we'd go to a drugstore and get a bottle of sulfuric acid," he says. He adds that, at that time, those kinds of reagents were readily available in stores, and they nicely supplemented the types of compounds typically included in chemistry sets.

The Princeton scientist's interest in chemistry, which was sparked during his childhood, became a full-scale blaze during his university years, thanks to a number of influential mentors. John C. Kotz, now chemistry professor emeritus at the State University of New York, Oneonta, taught the honors freshman course in chemistry at Kansas State University, Manhattan, which Bernasek remembers as "a really great class."

Bernasek says he also had the good fortune during his freshman year at Kansas State to be given a job building a gas chromatograph in the lab of Herbert C. Moser, now emeritus professor of chemistry. Later, he worked with R. Graham Cooks, now a chemistry professor at Purdue University, performing organic synthesis and mass spectrometry.

According to Bernasek, in his third year at Kansas State, "a seed of interest" in surface science was planted by Gabor A. Somorjai, who visited the university and described his group's studies on metal-surface reconstructions. Bernasek says he found the work "amazing and fascinating" and not long thereafter decided to pursue his graduate education in Somorjai's surface chemistry laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.

Thirty years later, Bernasek has come to be well-known for his state-specific investigations of surface reaction dynamics. He is also recognized for his pioneering contributions to iron surface chemistry and to the study of transition-metal-compound surfaces, including metal oxides and ternary compounds.

"Bernasek's contributions to surface chemistry have pioneered the development of new, active areas of research," Somorjai says. He adds that the Princeton scientist's work "continues to have broad impact and to lead the way into new fields of surface chemistry."

Bernasek, 56, earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1971 and a Ph.D. degree in chemistry in 1975. After a short assignment as a postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Bernasek was appointed assistant professor of chemistry at Princeton in 1975. In 1981, he was named associate professor. He was promoted to professor in 1986.

Bernasek has published more than 160 scientific papers and has advised more than 50 graduate students, 25 postdoctoral associates, and 30 undergraduates.

The award address will be presented before the Division of Colloid & Surface Chemistry.-Mitch Jacoby

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