UAlbany Chemist Eric Block Named to Highest Rank by International Science Organization

Culmination of 'A Banner Year'

Newly awarded Department of Chemistry Professor Eric Block

ALBANY, N.Y. (November 30, 2012) – University at Albany chemistry professor Eric Block has been named a fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the leading international organization dedicated to the advancement of science. Block received this honor for commendable contributions to his field.

According to Alan I. Leshner, CEO and executive publisher of the AAAS-published Science magazine, Block is being recognized “for distinguished contributions to organosulfur, organoselenium and food chemistry, particularly onion and garlic (Allium) chemistry, and the physiological effects of organosulfur compounds, including olfaction.”

A 31-year faculty member of UAlbany’s Department of Chemistry, Block will be presented with a certificate and rosette, emblematic of the title of AAAS Fellow, at the Association’s annual meeting on February 16, 2013 in Boston, Mass.

“Professor Eric Block has had a banner year,” said Li Niu, chemistry department chair, “with his selection as the 2012 recipient of the Sterling B. Hendricks Lectureship Award of the USDA, his collaborative work on the role of copper in olfaction published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the publication of a Festschrift edition of the Journal of Sulfur Chemistry in honor of his 70th birthday, and now his election as an AAAS Fellow.”

Block is the author of more than 230 scientific papers, four books, and ten patents in the field of organic chemistry, particularly involving compounds containing sulfur, as well as food and agricultural chemistry. He is the recipient of national and international awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, and has been a visiting fellow at Cambridge University and a visiting professor at the Weizmann Institute in Israel.

In 2006, Block became one of the first two endowed professors in the University at Albany’s 168-year history, when he was named Carla Rizzo Delray Distinguished Professor of Chemistry.

The AAAS Fellowship given to Block is one of the many recent awards and honors bestowed upon UAlbany faculty-researchers.

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