Dr. Ben Feringa | Feynman Prize Awards Ceremony
Join us for the Foresight Feynman Prizes Awards Ceremony! Named in honor of physicist Richard Feynman, these prizes are granted by the Foresight Institute to recognize recent brilliant achievements in the field of Nanotechnology.
This year, we have the honor of celebrating the accomplishments of our 2025 winner in the Experiment category, Dr. Ben Feringa.
Bio: Ben L. Feringa obtained his PhD degree at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands under the guidance of Professor Hans Wynberg. After working as a research scientist at Shell in the Netherlands and the UK, he was appointed lecturer and in 1988 full professor at the University of Groningen and named the Jacobus H. van't Hoff Distinguished Professor of Molecular Sciences in 2003. He is member and former vice-president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. He was elected Foreign Honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, The German Academy Leopoldina, the Chinese National Academy of Sciences, Foreign member of the Royal Society (London) and Member of the US National Academy. In 2024 he was elected member of the American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia). Ben Feringa is member of European Research Council ERC. In 2008 he was appointed Academy Professor and was knighted by Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands and in 2016 promoted to Commander in the order of the Dutch Lion. Feringa’s research has been recognized with a number of awards including the Koerber European Science Award (2003), the Spinoza Award (2004), the Prelog gold medal (2005), the Norrish Award of the ACS (2007), the Paracelsus medal (2008), the Chirality medal (2009), the RSC Organic Stereochemistry Award (2011), Humboldt award (2012), the Nagoya gold medal (2013), ACS Cope Scholar Award 2015, Chemistry for the Future Solvay Prize (2015), the August-Wilhelm-von-Hoffman Medal (2016), the Tetrahedron Prize 2017, the Euchems gold medal and the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (jointly with J.-P. Sauvage and Sir J.F. Stoddart).
Abstract: Inspired by Nature's principles of catalysis, molecular assembly, recognition, transport and motion, the goal is to exploit the full potential of synthetic chemistry to create new structures with dynamic and adaptive functions. Feringa has been a pioneer in molecular nanoscience, exploring molecular switches and motors, initiating one of the most important fundamental developments in the field of chemistry in the past decades, i.e. the control of molecular motion. The discovery of the world’s first rotary molecular motor powered by light set the stage for numerous developments in the emerging field of dynamic molecular systems, ranging from smart drugs (i.e. photo-pharmacology) to responsive materials, catalysts and soft robotics.
Foresight Institute Molecular Machines Group
A group of scientists, entrepreneurs, and institutional allies who cooperate to advance molecular machines, applications in energy, medicine, and material science, and long-term progress toward Richard Feynman’s vision of nanotechnology.
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Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83710072298