David Milstein
Israel Matz Professorial Chair of Organic Chemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
"Discovery of Enviornmentally Benign Catalytic Reactions for Synthesis" (986kb PDF)
David Milstein received his Ph.D. at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1976 with Prof. J. Blum. He carried out postdoctoral work at Colorado State University, where together with his advisor, John Stille, he discovered the Stille Reaction. In 1979 he joined the DuPont Company in Wilmington, Delaware, where he became a group leader in the homogeneous catalysis area. In 1987 he accepted a professorial appointment at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he was head of the Department of Organic Chemistry from 1996-2005. In 2000 he became head of the Kimmel Center for Molecular Design. He has been the Israel Matz Professor of Organic Chemistry since 1996.
His research interests focus on the development of fundamental organometallic chemistry, particularly the activation of strong bonds, and its application to the design and implementation of new environmentally benign processes catalyzed by transitionmetal complexes.
Milstein has received the Kolthoff Prize by Technion (2002), the Israel Chemical Society Prize (2006), the Miller Professorship, UC Berkeley (2006); the ACS Award in Organometallic Chemistry (2007); the RSC Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson Award (2010); the Humboldt Senior Award (2011); and the Israel Prize (2012, Israel’s highest honor). He was elected to the German National Academy of Sciences-Leopoldina (2006) and to the Israel National Academy of Sciences and Humanities (2012).