International Dr. Barbara Mez-Starck Prize
In memoriam of Barbara Mez-Starck the Dr. Barbara
Mez-Starck Foundation (Freiburg) annually awards a prize for outstanding
contributions in the field of experimental structural chemistry and
molecular physics including mainly electron diffraction, microwave and
high-resolution infrared spectroscopy. The prize consists of one to five
thousand Euros. A group of eminent workers in the field are asked for
nominations.
The following colleagues are awarded:
- 2003: Prof. Dr. Victor P.
Spiridonov, Moscow State University (Russia) for his innovative work
in the field of molecular structure determination in terms of potential
energy function parameters from electron diffraction
- 2004: Prof. Dr. Lawrence S. Bartell, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (USA) for his outstanding contributions to various
aspects of gas-phase electron diffraction theory (among others the
introduction of vibrational anharmonicity into the structure analysis)
- 2005: Prof. Dr. Kenneth
Hedberg, Oregon State University,
Corvallis (USA) and Prof. Dr.
Heinz-Dieter Rudolph, Universität Ulm.
Prof. Hedberg was awarded for, among others, the introduction
of the least-squares analysis into gasphase electron diffraction and his
contributions to the conformational analysis of organic compounds. He
studied very interesting structural effects, such as the planrity of
trisilylamine, the pseudolinearity of disilyl ether, the dynamic
Jahn-Teller distortion of chromium pentafluoride, and the non-VSEPR
geometry of chromyl fluoride. Last but not least, he investigated the
gasphase structures of the fullerenes C60, C70,
and C60F48.
Prof. Dr. Heinz-Dieter Rudolph was awarded for his contributions in high
resolution molecular spectroscopy. In order to improve the accuracy of
the experimental molecular structure he studied the microwave spectra
of as much isotopic species as possible (up to 41 isotopomers per compound). He was
one of the first to build a highly sensitive spectrometer with digital
averaging, which allows to measure the microwave spectra of isotopic
species in natural abundance. He made several important contributions to
the theory of the substitution method, particularly by extending the
Kraitchman equations.
- 2006: Prof. Dr. Kozo
Kuchitsu, Graduate School of BASE, Tokyo
University of Agriculture and Technology, Tokyo.
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