In Good Company: Chemist Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
James Cowan, Melvin S. Newman Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, one of the world’s oldest — created in 1783, and most respected academic societies — Scotland's equivalent of America’s National Academy of Sciences. Cowan, who attended the award ceremonies in Edinburgh, in May, was cited as “an outstanding scientist whose work spans the interface between chemistry and biology.”
Cowan studies the critical roles of metal ions in biology and investigates roles of metal ions in neurochemistry and neurological disease.
His multidisciplinary approach to science using chemical, physical and biological techniques — including fast kinetics, chemical synthesis, multinuclear and multidimensional NMR methods, optical spectroscopies, EPR and electrochemistry, calorimetry, protein biochemistry, molecular biology and genetics — has led to fundamental advances in understanding the cellular chemistry of metals and the relationship to disease, novel applications of inorganic chemistry to the design of therapeutics, and new insights on biochemical catalysis of relevance to energy conversion and sustainable chemistry.
“Election to the Royal Society of Edinburgh is clearly a distinctive honor, given the historical significance of the Society as one of the oldest and most influential of national academies, and the many significant contributions of prior Fellows to the Arts and Sciences,” Cowan said.
“Also, it is a wonderful recognition of the work of numerous graduate, undergraduate and postdoctoral researchers that I have been privileged to work with and learn from.”
The Royal Society of Edinburgh, created in 1783 by Royal Charter for “the advancement of learning and useful knowledge,” is Scotland’s National Academy of Science and Letters. Its Fellows are elected from the full spectrum of disciplines, giving it a multidisciplinary perspective that makes it unique among other national academies.
All new Fellows are invited to an Induction Day in mid-May; it includes a formal ceremony in which new Fellows are invited to sign the Society’s Roll Book and be formally admitted to the Fellowship.
Cowan is in excellent company. Not only did prior Presidents of the Society include Sir Walter Scott, Lord Kelvin and Sir Michael Atiyah, the list of new inductees is both international and impressive.
“The range of disciplines spanned by the Society is reflected by the individuals who were inducted along with me: Margaret Elizabeth Buckingham, Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, Department of Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, The Institut Pasteur, France; Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Master of the Queen's Music; Baroness Helena Ann (Kennedy of The Shaws), Master, Mansfield College, Oxford; Elizabeth Anne Lochhead, Poet and Scots Makar (National Poet of Scotland); Barbara Grosz, Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences, Computer Science, School of Engineering, Harvard University; and Giuseppe Zaccai, Directeur de Recherche Emérite CNRS, Institut de Biologie Structurale, France.”
Born in Cleland, Scotland, Cowan earned a B.Sc. in chemistry with first-class honors from the University of Glasgow in 1983, did graduate studies in Organic and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, and came to Ohio State following a NATO postdoctoral appointment at the California Institute of Technology.
He has been visiting professor at both the University of Florence and Harvard University. He has published more than 235 research papers, several books and holds several patents.
Cowan is the recipient of many awards and recognitions: NSF Presidential Young Investigator, Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, the Baekeland Award and Medal of the North New Jersey Section of the ACS, Ohio State University Distinguished Scholar Award, and Royal Society of Chemistry Award in Bio-Inorganic Chemistry, among others.
He is also an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Chemical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
