Chemist Gui Bazan

Guillermo C. Bazan, professor of materials and of chemistry and biochemistry at UC Santa Barbara, and director of the university’s Center for Polymers and Organic Solids, has been selected to receive the prestigious Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany. Only 20 individuals from around the world received the award this year.

This award recognizes research achievements to date. With the award, Bazan is invited to carry out research projects of his own choice in cooperation with colleagues in Germany for periods of between six months to one year.

The Humboldt Foundation grants 20 Bessel Research Awards annually, in a wide variety of fields, to top-flight scientists and scholars abroad who are under age 45.

In congratulating Bazan, Chancellor Henry T. Yang called him a “true pioneer.” He said, “The Bessel Award encompasses the sciences, engineering, humanities, and social sciences, giving it particular significance, and making the selection all the more meaningful. I think this is particularly fitting given the interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of Bazan’s work.”

Bazan and his UCSB research group work on organic semiconductors, focusing on the basic science of how to synthesize them and how molecular structures influence collective properties.

“What’s interesting is that the foundation recognizes the study of organic materials from a fundamental perspective, as scholarship, rather than in terms of applications,” said Bazan. “What we do adds to human knowledge, and that is valuable in itself.”

He has already begun collaborative work in Germany and has just returned from a visit to Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet in Muenster.