Andy Barron Recognized for Research with Inaugural Hackerman Award

Andy Barron

“I’m probably the first faculty member to get roses from Rick Smalley,” says Andy Barron, referring to the time six years ago that he was considering coming to Rice University from Harvard, where he was an associate professor of chemistry. The dozen red roses arrived at his home one night with a card from Smalley and the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, stating, “Wish you were here.” It wasn’t the only reason Barron decided to come to Rice, but it certainly got his attention.

Barron, the Charles W. Duncan Jr.–Welch Chair of Chemistry and professor of materials science, has just been named the first recipient of the Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research, presented by the Welch Foundation, one of the nation’s oldest and largest sources of private funding for basic research in chemistry. The award, which comes with a $100,000 prize, is designed to encourage and recognize young chemical scientists in Texas for their research endeavors.

“We are delighted that the Welch Foundation has recognized Dr. Barron’s outstanding work in inorganic chemistry in such a significant manner,” says Kathleen Matthews, dean of the Wiess School of Natural Sciences. “That this award honors Norman Hackerman, an emeritus faculty member in the Department of Chemistry and president emeritus of the university, is a double benefit.”

Originally from a suburb just outside of London, Barron received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the Imperial College of Science and Technology of the University of London. Before joining the faculty at Harvard, he conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Texas at Austin—one of the reasons he was happy to consider moving to Houston.

“When you move to a new country, you tend to feel more at home in the place you first moved to,” he says. “Having been a postdoc in Austin, I feel more at home here than I did in Massachusetts. And I cannot stand snow.”

Barron’s research focuses on the applications of inorganic chemistry to the materials science of aluminum, gallium, and indium and the fabrication of micro- and nano-electronic devices based on molecular design. His research group studies the relationships between the structure and bonding within a compound or material and its physical and/or chemical properties.

In addition, he has developed a new environmentally benign way to make aluminum-oxide ceramics and has developed nanoparticle-enhanced composite materials. In collaboration with Mark Wiesner, professor of civil and environmental engineering and chemical engineering and director of Rice’s Environmental and Energy Systems Institute, he created a nano filter system that could be used in hazardous waste treatment, biomedical separations, and controlling the spread of viruses.

One of his major discoveries began when he was studying polymers with a grant from the polymer division of the U.S. Navy. “We found out that what were thought to be aluminum–oxygen-containing polymers were actually nanoparticles,” he says. “In fact, it turned out that a whole class of materials that were thought to be polymers weren’t polymers.”

Barron had no idea that he had been nominated for the Hackerman award. The nomination was a secret, and he only found out when he got a phone call from the Welch Foundation telling him about the award committee. Since he holds a Welch chair, he assumed he was being asked to serve on “yet another committee.” Finally, he was told that he was the first recipient of the award. The news was “doubly welcome,” he said. “First, to win it, and second, not to have to sit on the committee.”

Barron has won numerous other awards, including the Humboldt Senior Scientist Research Award and the Corday Morgan Medal and Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry, but said he is especially pleased to win an award named after Norman Hackerman.

“Andy Barron is an energetic paragon of creativity and resourcefulness in both research and teaching,” says Rice president Malcolm Gillis. “Throughout Norman Hackerman’s long and productive career, one of his prime interests has been in supporting and recognizing young scientists. The first winner of the Hackerman Award, Andy Barron, well exemplifies what Norman has had in mind all these years.”

—Margot Dimond