Texas A&M University at Qatar and Qatar Petrochemical Company (Qapco) yesterday announced that Nobel laureate Dr Robert H Grubbs, Victor and Elizabeth Atkins professor of chemistry at the California Institute of Technology will hold the Qapco Chair of Polymer Science and Engineering at the local campus of the US institution.
From left: al-Mulla, HE Dr al-Sada, Weichold and Grubbs
Grubbs will hold the position of adjunct professor of chemistry at TAMUQ under the agreement.
The announcement event was attended by senior officials from TAMUQ and Qapco as well as HE Dr Mohamed bin Saleh al-Sada, Minister of Energy and Industry.
The event came after the agreement signed between TAMUQ and Qapco on April 29 in which the company endowed a fund for the university to bring a Nobel laureate to Qatar each year.
The QR274,000 annual fund will provide for bringing the chair recipient to Qatar under
the auspices of TAMUQ.
Welcoming the Nobel laureate, Dr al-Sada said: “I consider this initiative an important milestone for research and development, not only for academic research but also for the future of Qatar, especially its energy industry.”
He said “Qatar aims to become one of the world’s leading knowledge-based economies, an economy that understands the power of education and research.”
“Oil and gas industry in Qatar has supported this knowledge-based strategy through promotion and establishment of linkage between the national research and development programmes of the universities in Qatar to the need of the industry,” he added.
Grubbs described Qatar as an amazing country which has very good scope for collaboration between science and industry. “I am impressed with the developments here,” he said
“Chemistry is always imperfect and there are a lot of developments ahead that have various applications in the industry,” he said.
Grubbs is a world-renowned scientist. His research involves design, synthesis and mechanistic studies of complexes that catalyze basic organic transformations. He has over 500 publications and over 115 patents based on his research.
In his acceptance speech, Grubbs said: “I look forward to interacting with the outstanding groups in Texas A&M at Qatar to further develop the applications of the olefin metathesis technology. The combination of petroleum technology through possible interactions with Qapco and the basic science at Texas A&M at Qatar will lead to interesting new breakthroughs.”
Dr Mohamed Yousef al-Mulla, vice chairman and chief executive officer of Qapco, said: “I am delighted that Professor Grubbs will be taking up the Qapco Chair of Polymer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M at Qatar, and I am confident that he will contribute to and expand the scope of research and development in this important area.”
TAMUQ dean and CEO Dr Mark H Weichold said: “We are grateful to Qapco for their generous endowment of this fund and proud to partner with them in bringing a Nobel laureate in the field of polymer science and engineering to Qatar.”