Professor Krzysztof Matyjaszewski has been named a University Professor
 Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, J.C. Warner Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Center for Macromolecular Engineering at the Mellon College of Science, has been named a University Professor in honor of the international recognition he has received for seminal contributions to the field of polymer chemistry. In a list of the top 100 scientists compiled in 2003 by Essential Science Indicators, Matyjaszewski ranked 16th among all fields of chemistry.
Matyjaszewski is renowned for developing atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), a controlled living polymerization that allows precise, nanoscale control over the formation of polymers. ATRP is a significant advance over conventional methods to make polymers, in which it’s difficult to control the composition and architecture of a resulting compound.
Using ATRP, scientists can mass produce high quality materials that combine very different structural and functional properties. These materials include specialty adhesives, durable but scratch-resistant paint coatings, matrices for carbon nanostructures, biomedical materials and toxin-neutralizing systems for use in environmental settings.
Matyjaszewski’s groundbreaking paper on ATRP, first published in 1995, has spawned considerable industrial and academic research in this field of controlled polymerization and has been cited more than 900 times. Much of the research progress and commercial success related to ATRP is due to two research consortia initiated and led by Matyjaszewski. The current consortium, built on the first ATRP consortium founded in 1995 with 11 international industrial organizations, has interacted with 21 industrial companies from around the world interested in creating novel polymeric materials for their markets.
Recently, Matyjaszewski received the 2004 Cooperative Research Award in Polymer Science and Engineering from the American Chemical Society (ACS). An elected fellow of the ACS Division of Polymeric Materials, Science and Engineering, Matyjaszewski also has received the 1989 Presidential Young Investigator Award, the 1999 Humboldt Award for U.S. Senior Scientists and the 2002 ACS Polymer Chemistry Award and other prestigious ACS awards.
May 5, 2004
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For more information, see:
 Carnegie Mellon Press Release
Matyjaszewski Group website
Department of Chemistry
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