| The ENI award | |
|---|---|
| Awarded for | Outstanding contributions in field of The New Frontiers in Hydrocarbons (Hydrocarbon award), The Renewable and Non-Conventional Energy (Renewable energy award), The Protection of the Environment (Environment award). |
| Presented by | Eni S.p.A., largest Italian industrial company with a market capitalization of US$138 billion, as of July 24, 2008. |
The ENI Award is a prize awarded by the Italian oil and gas company ENI with the aim of encouraging better use of energy sources and increased environmental research. The strict award guidelines and the notable names on the selection committee (including Nobel laureates) make ENI a coveted award. List of ENI award winners include Nobel laureates like Harold W. Kroto and Alan Heeger.
Some websites and magazines have called the ENI award the "Nobel prize of energy research". The scientific committee of the ENI award includes representatives from Stanford University, MIT, Cambridge, University of Stuttgart, Florida State University, University of Pisa, University of Texas at Austin, and others. The annual ENI award was officially launched in July 2007, foreseen by the group’s Technological Master Plan. The ENI award extends and replaces the Eni-Italgas Prize, previously known as the Italgas Prize, which in 2006 had reached its XIX edition.
Contents |
The Award’s Scientific Committee – which has the role of evaluating the candidates and assigning the prizes, is of the highest level and comprises researchers and scientists from some of the world’s most advanced research institutes, and includes the Nobel prize-winner Sir Harold Kroto.
In subsequent years 63 researchers, from 10 countries, have been awarded: Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the United States of America. Included in the number are three Nobel prize-winners. More than 800 researchers from around the world have submitted their research projects, to which should be added the numerous personalities who have guaranteed or been a part of the various evaluation commissions.[1]
The distinguished representatives of the international scientific community who have received the ENI award in the past include Sir Harold W. Kroto, Nobel Prize winner in 1996 for Chemistry and now member of the Eni Award Scientific Commission; Alan Hegger, Nobel Prize 2000 for Chemistry; and Theodor Wolfgang Haensch, winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize for Physics.
The Research and Environment prize was awarded to the American scientist J. Craig Venter, one of the most important living geneticists who, in 2000, announced that he was the first to have complete a map of the human genome. The prize was awarded for late 2007 research paper, published in the journal Science, in which he created a synthetic chromosome in the laboratory while working on the DNA of bacteria. Venter's results are a fundamental step towards synthetic genes, which promise an unlimited range of revolutionary applications in the energy and environmental fields, such as new processes for the sequestration of CO2 or the regeneration of polluted environments. In terms of energy, this research opens the road to the design of new metabolic paths for the production of innovative biofuels from organic materials.
The Science and Technology prize was awarded ex aequo to Arthur J. Nozik (U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Laboratory in Golden, Colorado) and Stefan W. Glunz (Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in Freiburg, Germany), both active in the field of the conversion of solar energy using photovoltaic technology.
The two Research Debut prizes have been awarded to the young researchers Silvia Cereda (Università di Milano Bicocca) and Gian Luca Chiarello (Università degli Studi di Milano) for research that promises interesting developments in the field of energy production.
J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., is regarded as one of the leading scientists of the 21st century for his invaluable contributions in genomic research. He is one of the most frequently cited scientists in North America. He is the founder, chairman and CEO of the J. Craig Venter Institute, a not-for-profit, research and support organization dedicated to researching human, microbial, plant and environmental genomics, exploring social and ethical issues in genomics, and seeking alternative energy solutions through genomics. The J. Craig Venter Institute has two divisions: the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), founded by Dr. Venter in 1992; and the Center for the Advancement of Genomics.
Dr. Venter began his formal education after a tour of duty as a Navy Corpsman in Danang, Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. After earning both a Bachelor's degree in Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in Physiology and Pharmacology from the University of California at San Diego, he was appointed professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. In 1984, he moved to the National Institutes of Health campus where he pioneered a revolutionary new strategy for rapid gene discovery. At TIGR, Venter and his team decoded the genome of the first free-living organism, the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae, using his new whole genome shotgun technique. TIGR has sequenced more than 50 genomes to date using Dr. Venter's techniques.
In 1998, Dr. Venter founded Celera Genomics to sequence the human genome. The successful completion of this research culminated with the February 2001 publication of the human genome in the journal Science. He and his team at Celera also sequenced the fruit fly, mouse and rat genomes. Dr. Venter and his team at the Venter Institute continue to do genomics research and have recently published several important papers covering such areas as environmental genomics, synthetic genomics and the sequence and analysis of the dog genome.
Dr. Venter is the author of more than 200 research articles and is the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, public honors, and scientific awards. These include the 2001 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize and the 2002 Gairdner Foundation International Award. Dr. Venter is a member of numerous scientific organizations including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Society for Microbiology. In 2004 Dr. Venter was one of the first 38 people to be selected by Desmond Tutu’s Foundation for Peace as part of the 'Hands that Shape Humanity' world exhibition.
Dr. Arthur J. Nozik is a Senior Research Fellow at the U.S. DOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Professor Adjoint in the Chemistry Department at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He received his BChE from Cornell University in 1959 and his PhD in Physical Chemistry from Yale University in 1967. Before joining NREL in 1978, then known as the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI), he conducted research at the Allied Chemical Corporation and American Cyanamid Corporation.
Dr. Nozik's research interests include size quantization effects in semiconductor quantum dots and quantum wells, the applications of these nanostructures to solar photon conversion, photogenerated carrier relaxation dynamics in semiconductor structures, photoelectrochemistry of semiconductor molecule interfaces, photoelectrochemical energy conversion, photocatalysis, and the optical, magnetic and electrical properties of solids. He has published over 160 papers and book chapters in these fields, and holds 11 U.S. patents. He has served on numerous scientific review and advisory panels and received several awards in solar energy research.
Dr. Nozik has been a Senior Editor of The Journal of Physical Chemistry since 1993. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the American Chemical Society, the Electrochemical Society, the Materials Research Society, and the Society of Photo Optical Instrument Engineers.
Professor Glunz is head of the Department of Silicon Solar Cells – Development and Characterization at Fraunhofer ISE in Freiburg, Germany. Stefan Glunz received his degree in Physics at the Albert-Ludvigs-Universitat in Freiburg 1991 and in 1995 he received his PhD Thesis in silicon solar cells after researching at the Fraunhofer ISE. His group concentrates on new technologies such as metallization and laser-chemical processing techniques in silicon solar cell production and research. Among other achievements, his group holds the internationally acknowledged world record for the conversion efficiency of multticrystalline silicon solar cells (20%). A crucial part of his work involves close cooperation with the photovoltaics industry to put new technologies into production. Stefan Glunz’s high-efficiency solar cell group consists technicians, engineers and academics.
Prof. Glunz is the author or co-author of over 130 conferences and 40 journal publications on high-efficiency silicon solar cells. He is also an editor for several high standard scientific journals such as the journal of Applied Physics, Progress in Photovoltaics, and Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, and is a member of scientific committees and the chairman of numerous international photovoltaic conferences.
The New Frontiers in Hydrocarbons award was assigned "ex aequo" to Alan G. Marshall (USA) and Tony Settari (Canada). It is awarded for research into the exploration, advanced recovery, development, refinement, transportation and distribution of oil and natural gas.
The Renewable and Non-Conventional Energy award was given to Martin Green. It is presented for advanced R&D results in renewable and non-conventional energy sources.
The Protection of the Environment award was awarded to Gérard Férey. It is presented for outstanding research and innovation in areas concerning the environmental impact of human activities, specifically protection and restoration of the environment, with a special focus on research and innovative technologies to eliminate local pollutants and CO2 to improve environmental conditions.
The two Research Debut awards, given to young scholars to promote research in Italy, have been assigned to Alberto Cuoci and Loredana De Rogatis. They cover the same areas as the three international awards: research and technological innovation in hydrocarbons, renewable and non-conventional energy, and protection and restoration of the environment.
Professor Marshall has been directing the ICR Program since 1993 within the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. The research centre, with its headquarters in Tallahassee at the Florida State University, was built in 1994 with a National Science Foundation loan and is part of a consortium led by the university itself. The Laboratory hosts numerous visiting scientists from different fields and gives them access to the extremely powerful magnetic fields that are generated there. It is the largest and highest-powered magnet laboratory in the world. With these high output magnets Alan G. Marshall, co-invented the technique known as the Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance (FT-ICR), a high resolution method for the accurate determination of mass. Thanks to the high resolution techniques created by the group to identify the molecular components of complex chemical compounds such as blood or oil, they have been able to obtain detailed pictures which enable scientists to understand and predict with accuracy the reactions and properties of these complex compounds.
Marshall graduated in 1965 with a degree in Chemistry from Northwestern University and earned his PhD in Physic Chemistry in 1970. He began his academic career at University of British Columbia and Ohio State University, then moved to Florida State University in 1993. Alan Marshall has written 469 scientific publications, holds numerous patents as a result of his research, and received many recognitions from universities and important institutes such as the American Institute of Chemists and the American Chemical Society. He is a member of several scientific committees and has also been on the board of many specialized magazines.
Tony Settari is an expert in reservoir engineering and computerized simulations of oil reservoirs, as well as in geochemical processes and basin fracture analysis. In the past 35 years Professor Settari has been involved in numerous engineering studies on petroleum recovery as well as in the development of several projects for the R&S and software for this purpose.
Professor Settari graduated in Mechanical Engineering in 1965 from the Technical University of Brno, and went on to get his PhD in Hydrocarbon Engineering Research from the University of Calgary where he still teaches and conducts research (he holds the Encana/Petroleum Society of CIM Endowed Chair in petroleum engineering). He boasts almost 40 years of experience working with private businesses in the petroleum extraction sector, both as a consultant as well as through research and consulting companies that he has started through the years.
In 1978 he started a pioneer project based on the use of modelling in hydraulic fracturing, and in 1984 he focused his attention on a project aimed at investigating complex intercurrent processes in the in-situ thermal recovery of bituminous sand. His current research interests focus on the geomechanical and fracture aspects of oil basins and on production by means of coupled simulation.
Tony Settari has written over 120 articles on oil basin engineering, simulation, geomechanics, hydraulic fracturing and other relevant issues. During his career he has received several nominations such as the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Distinguished Lecturer (he then became Distinguished Member in 2003). In 2008 SPE also awarded him with the Anthony B. Lucas Gold Medal. He is also a member of the Canadian Institute of Mining and APEGGA.
Martin Green has held the position of inaugural Australian Federation Fellow and Scientia Professor at New South Wales University in Sydney since 1999. He is also the Executive Director of Research at the Australian Research Council Photovoltaic Centre of Excellence and the Research Director of the CSG Solar company.[2]
Martin Green graduated in engineering from Queensland University in 1970 and received his masters degree in 1971. He then went on to study at McMaster University where he obtained his PhD in Solar Energy Research, gradually becoming a noted person in the field. He has been awarded numerous scientific prizes such as the 1999 Australia Prize and the Karl Böer Solar Energy Medal of Merit Award assigned by the Delaware University in 2003 for his innovative studies on solar cells.
In 1999 Green was elected a member of the Australian Academy of Science. He is also a member of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering as well as of the Institute of Electronic Engineers. Between 1977 and 1984 he has been a visiting professor at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, a visiting consultant at the Solar Energy Research Institute of Colorado and a visiting professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China.
He has written over 300 articles that have been published in specialized magazines such as Solid-State Electronics, Nature, and Advanced Solar Energy Conversion. With his research group he has focused on the study of solar cell efficiency limiting factors, and is credited for having improved silicon cell performance by 25%. With his ongoing research, Green thus contributes to performance improvement and to a likely increased use of solar energy.
Professor Ferey is an international expert on porous solids, on which he has had published over 450 articles in specialized magazines such as the Journal of Solid State Chemistry, Solid State Sciences, Chemistry of Materials, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, the Journal of the American Chemical Society and Science.
His research group, based at the Institut Lavoisier of the University of Versailles where G. Ferey is a professor, is formed by a few young researchers and is assisted by researchers and engineers from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Their research is focused on inorganic and hybrid porous solids with microscopical holes (MOFs) which are particularly useful in the petrochemistry, catalysis, gas separation and fine chemistry fields. This field of research is becoming increasingly relevant due to the importance of these materials in hydrogen and CO2 storage as well as in the production of electrode materials because of their combination of inorganic (metal ions) and organic components (mostly stiff organic molecules that make up 1-, 2- or 3-dimensional porous structures).
Professor Ferey owns patents for his research and has received many important scientific recognitions, such as his admission to the Académie des sciences de l'Institut de France in 2003, his Royal Society of Chemistry Fellowship in 2005 and the Gay-Lussac-Humboldt Award presented to him by the Alexander Von Humbolt Foundation. He has been and still is on the advisory board of several scientific magazines (Inorganic Chemistry, the Journal of Solid State Chemistry, Chemistry of Materials). Between 1988 and 1992 he was the Deputy Director of the CNRS Chemistry Department, and is currently the President of the National Committee of Chemistry.
Prizes awarded in 2010 include:[3]
The New Frontiers of Hydrocarbons Prize was assigned "ex aequo" to Avelino Corma, The Instituto De tecnologia Quimica Upv-Csic (Valencia), for his important discoveries about the synthesis of new catalysts to improve the refinement of the heaviest oil fractions and to Mark Knackstedt, Australian National University (Canberra), for his pioneering research into the location and characteristics of oil-fields, grounded on high resolution and 3D images of rock structures.
The Renewable and Non-Conventional Energy Prize was assigned to Angela Belcher, MIT (Boston), for her innovative and fundamental research project on the principles of development of the natural systems that can reconvert and use energy.
The Protection of the Environment Prize was awarded to François Morel, Princeton University, for his important discovery of a new class of enzymes that plays a crucial role in CO2 transport and fixation.
The Debut in Research Prizes were awarded to Lorenzo Fagiano, Polytechnic University of Turin (Turin), for a dissertation that represents an important ad innovative contribution on high altitude wind power generation and that includes theoretical analyses, systems planning, simulations and economic analyses.
and to
Matteo Mauro (University of Milan, Department of Inorganic Chemistry “L. Malatesta”) for a research project on high-efficiency energy devices with a strong potential for application to light-emitting systems with low energy loss, based on innovative electroluminescent components.
Avelino Corma
Avelino Corma is Research Professor and Director of the ITQ at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia since 1990. His current research field are structured nanomaterials and molecular sieves as catalysts, covering aspects of synthesis, characterization, and reactivity in acid-base and redox catalysis. Professor Corma studied Chemistry at the University of Valencia, where he obtained his BA in 1973 and later, in 1976, he then obtained the Ph.D. “with honours” at the Chemical Engineering Department from the University Complutense of Madrid. In 1979 he became Associated Researcher at the Institute of Catalysis in Madrid after two years of postdoctoral work at the Chemical Engineering Department of Queen’s University in Canada with Professor B. W. Wojciechowski, and in 1987 was appointed Research Professor. He has been collaborating for research projects with many important companies who deal with catalysis, such as Shell, BP-Amoco, ExxonMobil, Total, Elf, Repsol, and Enichem, among the others. Thanks to his important research work Professor Corma is also member of the Royal Academy of Engineering of Spain, of the Academia Europaea, and of the National Academy of Engineering USA. He is Fellow of The Royal Society of Chemistry and Member of the Scientific Boards of numerous institutions and prestigious journals, such as the Max-Planck Institut für Kohlenforschung (Germany), BP, the Journal of Catalysis, Microporous and Mesoporous Materials, Catalysis Letters, Japanese Catalysis Surveys, Catalysis Reviews: Science and Engineering, the Journal of Molecular Catalysis and the Journal of Physical Chemistry. He is also Scientific Advisor for BP, ExxonMobil, Shell, Rhodia, Albemarle, Sumitomo, Sasol, CEPSA, Conoco-Phillips. He has written about 800 articles on these subjects in international journals, three books, and a number of reviews and book chapters. He is co-author of more than 100 patents; 11 of them have been commercialized. Professor Corma’s work allowed him to be awarded with numerous prizes, including the DuPont Award on New Materials, the Spanish National Award on Science and Technology, the F.G. Ciapetta and E.J. Houdry Awards of The North American Catalysis Society, the Gabor A. Somorjai Award from the American Chemical Society, the François Gault Award of the European Federation of Catalysis Societies. He is Doctor Honoris Causa of the Utrecht University, Technical University of Munich, UNED from Madrid, Jaime I University and Universitat of Valencia.
Mark Knackstedt
Knackstedt was awarded a BSc from Columbia University in Chemical Engineering (1985) and obtained a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Rice University in 1990. From 1990 been resident at the Department of Applied Mathematics at Australian National University (ANU); since 2005 he has been Professor of Applied Mathematics at ANU and Visiting Professor at the School of Petroleum Engineering at University of NSW (UNSW). With his research group he has led a significant “Digital Materials” research effort (>25 staff & students) which has pioneered the study of real-world materials in three-dimensions via a two-pronged approach: sophisticated structural measurements with state-of-the-art tomographic and microscopy methods coupled with sophisticated image analysis and numerical modeling tools. This combined development allows for a new numerical laboratory approach to the study of complex disordered materials. Numerical measurements performed directly on images can in some cases be performed with similar accuracy and considerably reduced complexity and cost than corresponding laboratory measurements. This development provides petroleum engineers and geoscientists with a new image-based core analysis technology which can enhance conventional core analysis techniques and allows analysis of unconsolidated cores, sidewall cores and drill cuttings which are not suitable for conventional laboratory measurement. The importance to the industry is illustrated by the membership of an ANU/UNSW research sponsorship by leading oil and gas industry companies including Shell, ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Total. He is presently CTO of Digital Core, a private company set up last year to offer this advanced technology to industry at large. Knackstedt was awarded the George C. Matson Award by the AAPG in 2009 and is a current (2009-2010) and past (2006-2008) Society Distinguished Speaker of the SPWLA. The groups work has been awarded Best Paper at the 2004 Annual Symposium of the SPWLA and Best Paper at the 2008 Society of Core Analysts meeting. Ongoing research of the group includes further development and integration of experimental 3D imaging techniques and studies of the role of surface and colloid chemistry phenomena underlying oil recovery.
Angela M. Belcher
Angela Belcher holds a BA in Creative Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara (1991), and in 1997 she received a PhD in Chemistry from the same University. Before joining the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2002, she has been a member of the faculty of the University of Texas, Austin, from 1999 to 2002. Dr. Belcher is now the Germeshausen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Biological Engineering at MIT; she is a materials chemist with expertise in the fields of biomaterials, biomolecular materials, organic-inorganic interfaces and solid state chemistry. The focus of Prof. Belcher’s research is understanding and using the process by which nature makes materials in order to design novel hybrid organic-inorganic electronic and magnetic materials on new length scales. Her research is very interdisciplinary in nature and brings together the fields of inorganic chemistry, materials chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology and electrical engineering. Her researches in new materials have applications in many fields such as solar cells, batteries, catalysts, medical diagnostics and basic single molecule interactions related to disease. Thanks to her innovative researches she has received many awards including, the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (2000), the Du Pont Young Investigators Award (1999) and the MacArthur Fellowship Award in 2004. Her research was covered in a July 2001 Forbes magazine cover story on nanotechnology and in 2007 Time Magazine has defined her as a “Climate-change hero”.
François Morel
François Morel is the Albert G. Blanke, Jr. Professor of Geosciences at Princeton University. Before joining the Princeton faculty in 1994, he served for many years as professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Morel received his Licence-ès-Sciences (BS) in Applied Mathematics at the University of Grenoble, where he also obtained the Diplôme d’Ingénieur in 1967. A few years later, in 1971, he earned a PhD in Engineering Sciences at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. Author of more than 150 articles, several books and book chapters, his research interests lie in theoretical, laboratory and field investigations of: coordination chemistry, surface chemistry and photochemistry of trace elements in natural waters; interactions between the chemistry and microbiota in aquatic systems; Oceanic primary production and Biogeochemical cycles of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and bioactive trace elements. His academic career is covered by several important recognitions: from 1998 to 2006 he was Director of the Princeton Environmental Institute, and from 1991 to 1994 Director of the R. M. Parsons Laboratory at MIT. He has been awarded the C.C. Patterson Medal of the Geochemical Society in 2001, the Maurice Ewing Medal of the American Geophysical Union in 2005, as well as the Urey Medal, from the European Association for Geochemistry in 2009, and was elected to the U.S National Academy of Sciences in 2009. François Morel has been Visiting Professor in many Universities like the Ecole Normale Supèrieure - Paris, the Université Piere et Marie Curie - Paris VI, Université Louis Pasteur – Strasbourg and the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne. His research work has been highly appreciated both in the public and in the private sector: he has been Member of several Panels of the National Research Council, the National Advisory Committee for Oceans and Atmosphere and the Conseil Scientifique of the Institut National de l’Environnement Industriel et des Risques among others. Finally he is a Member of several professional societies, including the American Geophysical Union, the American Society for Microbiology, the American Chemical Society and the Geochemical Society.