Distinguished Prof Susumu Kitagawa Elected as Foreign Member of the Royal Society

On May 10, the Royal Society announced the scientists who would join the Fellowship. iCeMS Distinguished Prof Susumu Kitagawa has been elected as a Foreign Member of the society. The Royal Society, founded in the 1660’s, is an independent scientific academy of the United Kingdom, dedicated to promoting excellence in science for the benefit of society. They also emphasize supporting international collaboration and demonstrating the importance of science to everyone.

Announcing the new members, Sir Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society said, “These individuals have pushed forward the boundaries of their respective fields and had a beneficial influence on the world beyond.”

The Royal Society includes approximately 1,700 Fellows and Foreign Members. This year 19 Foreign Members were elected by the current members. Prof Susumu Kitagawa pioneered the chemistry of metal-organic framework materials (MOFs) constructed from organic ligands and metal ions utilizing coordination bonds and established the chemistry of coordination space. He was the first to demonstrate porosity in crystalline organic ligand-linked coordination networks with gas sorption experiments: a discovery that laid the foundations of and then set the direction for one of the fastest-growing areas of fundamental research in modern chemistry.