American Chemical Society's Cleveland Section Awards Morley Medal to UB Chemistry Professor

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Paras Prasad, Ph.D., SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry in the University at Buffalo's College of Arts and Sciences and Samuel P. Capen Chair, has been awarded the 2004 Morley Medal by the Cleveland section of the American Chemical Society.

The Morley Medal is given annually by the Cleveland Section of the ACS to a chemist for outstanding contributions to chemistry while residing in an area within a 250-mile radius of Cleveland.

The Morley Award Symposium and Banquet will be held in Prasad's honor on May 26th in Cleveland at John Carroll University and will feature speakers, including two national academy members, from industry and academia.

Prasad will address the banquet with a talk entitled, "Emerging Opportunities at the Interface of Nanochemistry, Photonics and Biomedical Sciences."

Founder as well as executive director of UB's Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics, Prasad is an early pioneer widely recognized by the international community for seminal contributions to the field of nonlinear optical effects and photonics.

His work has provided the guiding principles for chemical design of nonlinear optical materials.

Currently, Prasad is making scientific breakthroughs in two emerging research areas: biophotonics -- the way biological matter interacts with light -- and nanophotonics, the interaction of matter with light at the nanoscale.

He also is the author of the first comprehensive books in each of these fields: Biophotonics (John Wiley & Sons, 2003) and Nanophotonics (John Wiley & Sons, 2004).

This interdisciplinary research has won him international recognition and resulted in several patented inventions that involve novel biophotonic materials with applications ranging from photodynamic cancer therapy to bioimaging to new dimensions in drug therapy made possible by nanomedicine.

A 1997 recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Prasad is a fellow of the Optical Society of America and the American Physical Society.

He has published more than 460 scientific papers and co-edited six major books in the field of photonics materials and co-authored the widely-used text and reference Introduction to Nonlinear Optical Effects in Molecules and Polymers.

As the organizer of six "International Conferences on Frontiers of Polymers and Advanced Materials," during the past 15 years, Prasad has played a major international role, bringing together scientists, engineers and government representatives of developing countries in order to develop a global infrastructure for advanced materials and emerging technologies.

Prasad also is the recipient of an Excellence in the Pursuit of Knowledge Award from State University of New York Chancellor Robert L. King.

In addition to his appointment in the Department of Chemistry in the UB College of Arts and Sciences, Prasad holds appointments in the departments of physics, medicine and electrical engineering.

He lives in Amherst.