February 25, 2010
Black History Month Colloquium
Joseph S. Francisco completed his undergraduate studies in Chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin with honors, and he received his Ph.D. in Chemical Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983. Francisco spent 1983-1985 as a Research Fellow at Cambridge University in England, and following that he returned to MIT as a Provost Postdoctoral Fellow. In 1986 he was appointed Assistant Professor at Wayne State University. In 1991 he was a Visiting Associate in Planetary Science at California Institute of Technology. He accepted an appointment as Professor of Chemistry and Earth & Atmospheric Sciences at Purdue University in January, 1995. In 2006 Francisco was appointed as the William E. Moore Distinguished Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Science and Chemistry at Purdue University. He served as President for the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) from 2005-2007. In 2008 he was elected to the Presidential succession of the American Chemical Society. He served as President-Elect for 2009, President for 2010, and Immediate Past President for 2011. He has also published over 400 peer-reviewed publications in the fields of atmospheric chemistry, chemical kinetics, quantum chemistry, laser photochemistry and spectroscopy. He was been a member of the Naval Research Advisory Committee for the Department of Navy (appointed by the Secretary of the Navy, 1994-1996). He has served as a member of the Editorial Advisory Boards of Spectrochimica Acta Part A, Advances in Environmental Research, Journal of Molecular Structure Theochem, and the Journal of Physical Chemistry. He is a co-author of the textbook Chemical Kinetics and Dynamics, published by Prentice-Hall. Professor Francisco has received numerous national and international honors for his academic accomplishments. Among these, the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award; Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship; Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar Award; and the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers Outstanding Teacher Award. He received John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 1993 which he spent at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. He received an American Association for the Advancement of Science Mentor Award in 1994. In 1995, he received a Percy L. Julian Award for Pure and Applied Research from the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE). From 1995 to 1997, he was a Sigma Xi National Lecturer. In 2007, he was the recipient of the Purdue University McCoy Award; this is the highest research award given to a faculty member for significant research contributions. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was recently awarded an Alexander von Humboldt U.S. Senior Scientist Award by the German government, as well as being appointed a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Bologna, Italy. He has been appointed to and served on committees for the National Research Council, National Science Foundation, American Chemical Society, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.