Chemistry International
Vol. 21, No. 3
May 1999
Awards
Erwin Buncel Wins
Canadian Society for Chemistry Lemieux Award
Professor Erwin Buncel, FCIC, Department of Chemistry, Queen's University,
Kingston, Ontario, Canada, and since 1993 Canadian representative on
the IUPAC-CHEMRAWN (Chemical Research Applied to World Needs) Committee,
has won the Canadian Society for Chemistry's prestigious R. U. Lemieux
Award for organic chemistry. He was honored for his studies of the alpha
effect and solvent effects, extension of the investigation of carbanion
structure and reactivity to group 14 anions, exploitation of anionic
sigma complexes as biochemical and biophysical probes, and research
with aromatic dye molecules.
Born in Czechoslovakia and educated in England, Professor Buncel performed
postdoctoral research in the United States and Canada, worked briefly
for industry, and has spent virtually his entire career since then at
Queen's University, except for numerous visiting professorships in different
countries. He has written or coauthored more than 250 research articles,
20 reviews and chapters, and 2 books; and he has edited or coedited
15 books and symposia. More than 50 graduate students have earned degrees
by working with him, and he has collaborated with scientists in over
a dozen countries.
Dr. Buncel received the 1985 Syntex Award in physical organic chemistry
from the Canadian Society for Chemistry (CSC), and a special issue of
the Canadian Journal of Chemistry was dedicated in his honor
in 1998. He served as physical organic chemistry editor for that journal
from 1981 to 1993, and he currently edits manuscripts for the Journal
of Labelled Compounds and Radiopharmaceuticals.
In recent years, Professor Buncel has become increasingly involved
in international scientific activities via participation in the International
Isotope Society as trustee, conference chair, editor, and Canadian Chapter
President, and through activities on IUPAC Working Committees, especially
in work directed at developing countries.