Rate My Professor Peter Stang

Peter J. Stang is a Distinguished Professor (Retired) of Chemistry at the University of Utah. Born in Germany and raised in Hungary, he earned his B.S. from DePaul University in 1963 and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1966. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University, he joined the University of Utah faculty in 1969. He served as Chair of the Department of Chemistry from 1989 to 1995 and Dean of the College of Science from 1997 to 2007. Stang holds the David P. Gardner Presidential Chair and was twice selected by chemistry students as Outstanding Teacher of the Year. He served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Organic Chemistry from 2000 to 2001 and the Journal of the American Chemical Society from 2002 to 2019. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Stang's research centers on supramolecular chemistry, with a primary focus on molecular architecture via coordination-driven self-assembly to create discrete metallacycles and metallacages. His work involves designing and synthesizing small organic molecules that self-assemble into larger geometric shapes for potential applications as nano-devices, shape-selective catalysts, anti-tumor agents, anti-bacterial agents, and drugs. He is the author or co-author of 635 scientific publications, cited more than 75,000 times with an h-index of 101. Key publications include "Organic Polyvalent Iodine Compounds" (Chemical Reviews, 1996) and "Self-Assembly, Symmetry, and Molecular Architecture: Coordination as the Motif in the Rational Design of Supramolecular Metallacyclic Polygons and Polyhedra" (Accounts of Chemical Research, 1997). Stang has received the National Medal of Science (2011), ACS Priestley Medal (2013), University of Utah Rosenblatt Prize for Excellence (1995), Utah Award in Chemistry from ACS (1994), Governor's Medal for Science and Technology, China's International Cooperation Award in Science and Technology (2019), American Institute of Chemists Gold Medal (2020), and recognition as one of Clarivate's Highly Cited Researchers.