Prof. Hans-Conrad zur Loye - recipient of the 2016 Governor’s Award for Excellence in Scientific Research

This award recognizes Prof. zur Loye’s record of scientific research excellence as well as his many contributions to teaching and service.  He is a highly respected scientist with an impressive record of research accomplishments.  He has helped to expand our state’s research infrastructure and to increase its visibility within the national and international scientific communities.

He is the David W. Robinson Palmetto Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of South Carolina.  He received his B.S. at Brown University in 1983 and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1988.  He spent one year as a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University before starting as an assistant professor at MIT in 1989. In 1996.  Prof. zur Loye moved to the University of South Carolina, where he is best known for his research in inorganic materials chemistry and his developments in the field of crystal growth, particularly for applying high temperature solution routes to growing crystals of complex oxides, which he investigates for their electronic, optical and magnetic properties.

Prof. zur Loye has worked on the development of high-temperature solution crystal growth techniques for over 20 years and has adapted and developed new crystal growth methods to synthesize hundreds of new complex oxides, fluorides and hybrid materials.  He has pioneered a new research direction, the growth of complex uranium-containing oxide and fluoride crystals from high temperature solutions in order to develop novel uranium-containing materials for long-term storage.  The underlying theme in all his investigations is the desire to understand how structure and composition effect properties, which ultimately allows him to synthesize compounds with specific structures and, consequently, specific properties.

Prof. zur Loye has published over 350 articles in peer-reviewed journals that have been cited over ten thousand times.  He is an associate editor for the Journal of Solid State Chemistry and a past editor for the Journal of Alloys and Compounds.  He is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS) as well as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).  He has been an invited professor at numerous universities worldwide and has received a number of national and international honors for his contributions to the fields of materials chemistry and crystal growth, such as the Exxon Award in Solid State Chemistry, the IPMI Henry J. Albert Award, and the Southern Chemist Award.  He is a past President of the South Carolina Academy of Science.

Prof. Chuanbing Tang - recipient of the 2016 Governor’s Young Scientist Award for Excellence in 

Scientific Research

The South Carolina Governor’s Young Scientist Award for Excellence in Scientific Research is directed to a gifted young researcher who has completed no more than 12 years beyond the Ph.D.  "Through your outstanding work in organic chemistry and polymer science, you have brought national and international recognition to South Carolina, and your research has contributed to the economy of our state", the Governor’s letter wrote.

In August 2009, Prof. Chuanbing Tang was appointed to be an Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina.  In June 2014, he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure and was later named College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor.  He has authored or co-authored about 100 refereed articles mostly in high-quality premier journals, and has 10 patent applications with 5 granted. Prof. Tang has been recognized with several major national and international awards including the NSF Career Award, Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator Award, Thieme Chemistry Journal Award, American Chemical Society PMSE Young Investigator Award, and USC Distinguished Undergraduate Research Mentor Award, and he was named a USC Breakthrough Rising Star.  He has been invited to present more than 100 seminars and talks at academic institutions, private industries, and at various conferences.

He also serves on several journal editorial boards including leading polymer journals such as Macromolecules, ACS Macro Letters, Macromolecular Rapid Communications, Macromolecular Chemistry and Physics, and Polymer.  Prof. Tang’s research encompasses synthetic organic chemistry and polymer science focused on sustainability, advanced materials and medicinal chemistries.  His research has three thrust areas:
(1) Sustainable chemicals, polymers and bio-materials from biomass.  The biomass research addresses the pressing global problem of sustainability, and has achieved widespread attention from the national and international research community.  His discoveries have also led to significant advances in the design of low-cost robust antimicrobial agents from natural products.
(2) Metal-containing polymers and biomedical application.  Prof. Tang has established a well-designed research platform covering everything from the synthesis of metallocene derivatives, monomers and polymers, to electrolyte chemistry, as well as to medicinal chemistry.  He has created a new paradigm for the use of these metallopolymers to improve the effectiveness of antibiotics against multidrug resistant bacteria.  His work could pave the way for the design of new antibiotics and antimicrobial agents to battle multidrug resistant bacteria and superbugs.
(3) Functional polymers and nanocomposites for dielectric energy storage.  Prof. Tang has developed a class of thiophene-containing polymers as high performance dielectric materials for energy storage.  His efforts have led to novel nanocomposites based on thiophene polymer-grafted ceramic nanoparticles that exhibit some unprecedented dielectric properties.