Dixon Recognized for Distinguished Service

David Dixon
Dr. David Dixon

From the February 2015 Desktop News | Dr. David A. Dixon, Robert Ramsay Chair in the Department of Chemistry, was awarded the American Chemical Society Division of Fluorine Chemistry Distinguished Service Award on Jan. 15. This award is given biannually at the Winter Fluorine Conference and recognizes outstanding service to the division.

“The award has real meaning to me as it is recognition of my service to the American Chemical Society Division of Fluorine Chemistry,” Dixon said. “I am very involved with the division, and it is an honor to be selected for this award.”

Dixon also served as co-chair of the Winter Fluorine Conference, for which he was responsible for inviting speakers, developing the program, judging student poster presentations and organizing a banquet and after-dinner talk. More than 150 people attended the event.

Dixon has been actively involved with the ACS Division of Fluorine Chemistry since 1993. He has served in numerous leadership positions of the division including chair, vice chair for programs, member of the executive committee, councilor/representative of the division at all ACS national meetings, associate on the Joint Board-Council Committee on Publications, committee member for the selection of ACS Fellows, chair of the annual Winter Fluorine Meeting and others.

His work has been recognized with numerous fellowships and awards including the 1989 Leo Hendrik Baekeland Award of the American Chemical Society given for outstanding accomplishment under the age of 40, the 2003 American Chemical Society Award for Creative Work in Fluorine Chemistry, a 2010 DOE Hydrogen Program Research and Development Award for Outstanding Contributions to Hydrogen Storage Technologies, the 2011 Burnum Award from UA, and the first SEC Faculty Achievement Award given to a UA faculty member in 2012.

Dixon’s research has resulted in the publication of more than 400 research papers in prestigious journals and the presentation of more than 200 invited lectures at major universities and public and private laboratories throughout the world, and three significant patents.

Prior to joining the UA faculty in 2004, Dixon was a Battelle Fellow at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He also served as associate director of theory, modeling and simulation in the William R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy national user facility at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., as research fellow and research leader at the DuPont Central Research and Development Laboratories in Wilmington, Del., as assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Minnesota, as a visiting research associate at the California Institute of Technology, and as a Junior Fellow, Society of Fellows, at Harvard University.

Dixon received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1971 and a doctoral degree in physical chemistry from Harvard University in 1976.