The Welch Foundation supports basic research in chemistry in Texas

Last week took me to Houston to a reception and banquet to celebrate the winners of the 2019 Welch Award in Chemistry. I had heard of the award before and knew a little bit about the work of the Welch Foundation through reading past C&EN articles published on the occasion of the Welch Foundation’s 50th anniversary.

The foundation was founded in 1954 (2 years after Robert Alonzo Welch’s death) in Houston, and it is one of the oldest private funding sources for basic chemistry research in the US. So far, it has contributed nearly $930 million to the advancement of chemistry through a variety of activities, including research and departmental grants, endowed chairs, and other chemistry-related programs, all in the state of Texas.

There isn’t a lot of information out there about the man behind the foundation, but if you are interested, you can read more about him in the Nov. 22, 2004, issue of C&EN, which is significantly easier to find on the C&EN website than on my bookshelf. Welch was a self-taught man, not formally trained in science. Later in life, though, he invested in land that was suspected to harbor oil and natural gas, learned the technical aspects of oil and sulfur extraction, and ultimately struck gold (pun intended!).

Thanks to his endowment, the foundation has so far sponsored 47 chairs in chemistry and related sciences and given grants to more than 1,500 people at 24 universities and colleges in Texas. In terms of awards, besides the Welch Award, which comes with $500,000 but is not limited to scientists working in the state, the foundation also supports the Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research. This accolade is aimed at early-career scientists in the state of Texas and comes with a $100,000 check. The foundation also supports up to 20 college scholarships annually at $14,000 each, paid over 4 years, and sponsors a summer research program for talented precollege chemistry students.

On Oct. 21, I had the opportunity to take part in the ceremony that honored this year’s winners: A. Paul Alivisatos from the University of California, Berkeley, and Charles M. Lieber from Harvard University. The award was designed to honor scientists who have devoted their careers to advancing the frontiers of chemistry, and the winners definitely fit this description when it comes to their work in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology. Alivisatos and Lieber are in good company. Previous winners include George C. Pimentel in 1986, Gilbert Stork in 1993, F. Albert Cotton in 1994, and, more recently, JoAnne Stubbe in 2010 and 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner John B. Goodenough in 2017.

A series of videos featuring other scientists and colleagues stating their support for Alivisatos and Lieber and describing the far reaches of their work was shown. In the segment of the video dedicated to Lieber, the video shows him walking around campus, talking to students, and spending time in his office. Guess what was on top of the pile of documents on his desk? I was delighted to see a recent copy of C&EN. Thanks for reading, professor Lieber!

The reception and dinner were accompanied by a symposium, “The Chemistry of Genome Editing and Imaging,” organized by none other than UC Berkeley’s Jennifer Doudna, who is a member of the foundation’s scientific advisory board. Some well-known faces were in the program, including Doudna herself and Harvard University’s Xiaowei Zhuang and David R. Liu.

There is no doubt that the Welch Foundation has made a significant difference to the state of chemical research in Texas. The award ceremony and symposium provided another opportunity to celebrate chemistry and its practitioners in the birthplace of a foundation with a mission that is very close to that of ACS: “Advancing chemistry. Improving life.”

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