Lars Grabow, the Dan Luss Professor in the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, is the 2026 recipient of the Catalysis Society of New York (CSNY) Excellence in Catalysis Award.
The award acknowledges his influential contributions to the advancement of catalysis science, as well as his leadership in that field. He will be giving a lecture, “From Water to Waveforms: Programming the Catalyst Environment” on April 22 at Princeton to the society.
Grabow said he was honored to win the award, and noted that previous award winners included his former mentor Jim Dumesic in 1994, and ChBE adjunct professor Jim F. Brazdil in 2001.
“I was genuinely surprised and deeply honored to receive this award,” he said. “It reflects the creativity and hard work of the students, postdocs, and collaborators I’ve had the privilege to work with over the years. I’m especially grateful to Prof. Rachel Austin for the nomination and to the New York Catalysis Society for this recognition.”
The non-profit organization was founded in 1958 to promote and encourage the growth and development of the science of catalysis in the New Jersey and Metro New York areas. It is part of the larger North American Catalysis Society. Grabow currently serves as the NACS Representative for his local catalysis club, the Southwest Catalysis Society.
Marcella Lusardi, the secretary of the NYCS and an assistant professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton, announced that Grabow was this year’s recipient at an earlier meeting of the society.
“This award acknowledges his many influential contributions to the advancement of catalysis science over the course of his career, in addition to his leadership within the catalysis community,” she said.
A member of the Cullen faculty for nearly 15 years, Grabow’s group uses computational methods to understand and predict chemical processes that occur on solid-gas and solid-liquid interfaces. Recently, he has received funding to research smaller modular reactor systems, and to boost clean energy with AI-powered catalysts and microwave plasma technologies.
For more information on his research, visit his group’s webpage.