Professor Sir Fraser Stoddart will succeed Professor Sir Colin Blakemore as President of the World Cultural Council. He will assume this role for the 2022 Award Ceremony at the University of Coimbra (UC), Portugal.

Fraser Stoddart has been a member of the faculty at Northwestern University since 2008. He is a Board of Trustees Professor and Director of the Center for the Chemistry of Integrated Systems. Following his graduation from Edinburgh University, he spent time at Queen’s University in Canada, Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), the universities of Sheffield and Birmingham in the UK, and the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) in the USA.

Professor Stoddart is best known for creating a new field of organic chemistry in which mechanical bonds are highlighted as a salient trait of molecular compounds. He pioneered molecular recognition and self-assembly in protocols for synthesizing mechanically interlocked molecules and was jointly awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this research.

He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2007 for his services to chemistry and molecular nanotechnology. In 2007 the WCC awarded him with the Albert Einstein World Award of Science, he has been a member of the organization since 2017. Over 50 years, almost 500 PhD and postdoctoral students have worked in his labs and been motivated by his diligence and creative talent. For further information, please see stoddart.northwestern.edu/fraser-stoddart/

The World Cultural Council (WCC) would like to sincerely thank Sir Colin Blakemore for his loyal commitment to the Council´s work since the early 1980s. Blakemore, Professor of Neuroscience & Philosophy at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, and Emeritus Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, is also founder member of the WCC. We offer our respect for his years of unflagging dedication to sharing his research in cognitive neuroscience, constantly inspiring scientists, researchers and leaders all over the world. Our deepest gratitude to President Emeritus Sir Colin Blakemore.