Spicer Awards. The income of the Fund is used to provide the William Monroe Spicer Scholarship to a rising senior in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Nominees will be evaluated for excellence in academic coursework, teaching (undergraduate teaching assistantships), undergraduate research, and leadership on campus. In the evaluation of teaching, preference will be given to those who have taught in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Publications and conference presentations will be considered in the evaluation of research excellence.

Who are the School’s undergraduate awards named for?

Georgia Tech has offered degrees in chemistry since 1906. Since then, many students have graduate from our programs, many faculty members have taught and mentored students, and many careers and lives have been enhanced. In some cases, alumni, friends of our school, faculty and the families of faculty members have given resources to the Georgia Tech Foundation to help strengthen and grow our community. The undergraduate Chance, Eberhardt, Fink, Sherry and Spicer awards are named in honor of former faculty members. The Arduengo award was created with funds from a former student and current faculty member, Prof. Arduengo.

Anthony "Bo" Arduengo III was born in Tampa, Florida, in 1952, and he grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. His academic journey took him through Georgia Tech, where he gained BSc and PhD degrees in Chemistry, the latter under the guidance of Prof. Edward M. Burgess. His career then moved between academia and industry, starting with DuPont, then moving to the University of Illinois, and back to DuPont where he made his best-known scientific discovery. After once again leaving Dupont, he moved to the University of Alabama and then onto Georgia Tech where he is currently a Professor of the Practice.

He is known for isolating the first stable N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) in 1991, which was revolutionary as carbenes were thought to be highly reactive and short-lived. This discovery opened up new avenues in many areas of chemistry. Not one to keep his science in the lab, Arduengo's work has found practical applications. He contributed to the development of low VOC automotive coatings and was involved in projects like the flexible polyimide film, Kapton-ZT, used in electronics. Through his involvement with the StanCE coalition, he is pushing for sustainable chemistry based on woody biomass or, as he would call it, "Xylochemistry". Beyond the lab, Arduengo has been committed to education, fostering interest in science among the young through lectures, and supporting research abroad through scholar exchange programs between the U.S. and Germany. He has ~150 publications and patents and his influence in chemistry is broad, touching on organic, inorganic, and material science.

Ronald R. Chance graduated from Delta State University with A BS in Chemistry in 1970 and when on to complete a PhD in Physical Chemistry ay Dartmouth in 1974. After a career in industry working for Honeywell (1974 – 1986) and Exxon Mobil corporation (1986 – 2006), he took a joint position between the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Georgia Institute of Technology, as a Professor of the Practice, in 2006. He joined Algenol Biofuels (2009-2019) as Executive Vice President for Engineering, while continuing an affiliation with the Georgia Institute of Technology His research interests include CO₂ capture and utilization. He has more than 150 peer reviewed publications and 30+ patents. He is an elected member of the American Physical Society and was the 2018 recipient of the Lawrence Evans Awards from AICHE.

Dr. William H. Eberhard was born in Montclair, N.J., in 1920, and died in 1993. He received an A.B. degree from John Hopkins and a PhD In Chemistry and Mathematics from Cal Tech. He worked with Nobel Prize winner Dr. Linus Pauling during World War ll. He came to Georgia Tech in 1946 as an instructor of chemistry and retired in 1984 as Regents' Professor Emeritus. Eberhardt was a physical chemist with an interest in spectroscopy. He was awarded an Alfred P Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship in 1956. He was the associate dean of COSALS (Colleges of Sciences, Arts and Letters) from 1970 to 1977. He was well known for his freshman chemistry demonstrations at Georgia Tech and was the recipient of the Outstanding Faculty, Outstanding Teacher and ANAK Awards. He spent time as a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota, University of Illinois, University of Washington and Harvard University. While visiting the University of Minnesota he worked on boranes with Prof. W. Lipscomb, who went on to win the 1976 Chemistry Nobel Prize for work on the structure of boranes. Eberhardt was a member of the American Cancer Society, American Physical Society, Georgia Academy of Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Sigma Xi and Phi Beta Kappa. Among his many professional activities was his participation in the National Science Foundation, National Research Council, the Advisory Council of College Chemistry, Research Corporation, and the American Chemical Society. He was for many years a consultant and judge for the Atlanta Science Congress. Dr. Eberhardt was an educator, a teacher, a researcher and a scholar.

The above biography draws heavily on an obituary published in The Atlanta Journal, June, 1993.

Prof. Richard W. Fink was born in 1928 in Detroit, Michigan.  As a child, he demonstrated an interest in science, often alarming the neighbors when his “experiments” generated smoke and foul odors from his basement “laboratory”.  He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Michigan in 1948, followed by a Master’s from the University of California, Berkeley in 1949, under the direction of Glenn T. Seaborg.  He obtained his Ph.D. in Nuclear Chemistry from the University of Rochester in 1953. He spent his early years in academia at the University of Arkansas and in 1963 was the recipient of a Fulbright Faculty Fellowship. He spent the year pursuing research in Germany.  During this period, he was approached by William M. Spicer with an offer to come to Georgia Tech, joining the faculty in the School of Chemistry in 1965.  While at Georgia Tech, he had the distinction of having twenty-four years of continuous research support from the Department of Energy and its predecessors the Atomic Energy Commission and ERDA.  He was one of the founding members of the University Isotope Separator project at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the mid 1970s. Prof. Fink has over 150 publications in refereed scientific journals and one particular paper on “X-ray Fluorescence Yields” has been cited over 1400 times in the scientific literature. During his time at Tech, he was mentor to seventeen post-doctoral fellows and research scientists and was thesis advisor to twenty Ph.D. and M.S. students, a significant number of whom went on to academic careers. He was an accomplished horseman and a lover of chocolate.

Dr. William Monroe Spicer was born in Hanover, Virginia, on December 22, 1908. He obtained his B.S. degree from Randolph–Macon College in 1932, and his Ph.D. degree from the University of Virginia in 1936. He came to Georgia Tech in 1936 as an Instructor, and rose through the ranks to Professor in 1948. From 1955 until 1973 he served as Director of the School of Chemistry. Upon his retirement in 1976, he was named Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Director Emeritus of the School of Chemistry. Dr. Spicer was active in research at a time when such efforts were not the norm for faculty members at Georgia Tech. He published fifteen papers from 1942 to 1958, and he received a Sigma Xi Research Award in 1952. Throughout his career, Dr. Spicer was an active member of organizations promoting research and scholarship, such as Sigma Xi, Phi Kappa Phi, and the Georgia Academy of Science. He was also an active member of the American Institute of Chemists and the American Chemical Society. In the latter organization he served as a National Councilor, representing the Georgia Section, for many years. Monroe Spicer was an outstanding, dedicated teacher who received both campus and national awards for outstanding teaching. He was coauthor (with W. S. Taylor and J. D. Clarey) of a general chemistry problem book that was used at numerous schools throughout the country. He took a strong personal interest in students, and he regularly taught a freshman chemistry section throughout the time he was Director of the School of Chemistry. He even continued to teach recitation and review sections in freshman chemistry after his retirement. As School Director for 18 years, Monroe Spicer was largely responsible for developing a strong graduate program in Chemistry. Under his leadership the Boggs Chemistry Building was planned and constructed. The memorial lecture and scholarship award are named to honor his memory as a scientist, teacher, and colleague in the School of Chemistry at Georgia Tech.