Chemistry’s Kevin Gable wins prestigious award for contributions to science

Chemistry Professor Kevin P. Gable is one of the 99 distinguished members of the American Chemical Society (ACS) who have been named a 2014 ACS Fellow. This prestigious award recognizes ACS members for outstanding contributions to science, the profession, and the ACS community.

With more than 161,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and one of the world’s leading sources of authoritative scientific information.

Chemistry professor Kevin Gable

OSU is proud to have two faculty inducted into this year’s cohort. Department Head of Food Science & Technology and Jacobs-Root Professor Robert McGorrin was also named a 2014 ACS Fellow. The 2014 ACS Fellows will be inducted at the 248th ACS National Meeting in San Francisco in August.

Gable was honored for his extraordinary contributions to science and to the profession, specifically for helping to establish the reaction mechanism for osmylation of alkenes and uncovering insights into the use of rhenium for mediating formation and cleavage of C-O bonds. The chemical processes involved in his research are particularly important to industrial manufacturers of antifreeze, plastics precursors and the pharmaceutical industry.

He also joins former colleague and Professor of Chemistry James D. White who was a 2011 ACS Fellow.

“I am honored to have been named to the prestigious ACS Fellows program,” said Gable.

“I look forward to continuing my work to advance chemistry and to serving the Society.”

Gable has also held leadership roles within ACS at the local, regional, and national levels, including Northwest Regional Meeting Steering Committee Secretary and Program Chair and Chair of the Joint Board-Council Committee on Publications.

He has also held key administrative leadership positions at OSU. Gable served as chair of the Chemistry Department from 2006-11 during a time of significant expansion. He increased faculty and student numbers by 30% while leading departmental planning for the construction of the Linus Pauling Science Center. In 2013, Gable was elected president of the Faculty Senate where he brought a faculty perspective to discussions on University governance, faculty welfare and curricular issues.

His research focuses on organo-transition metal chemistry that may lead to new catalytic transformations of organic molecules. This involves making organic compounds as substrates, and inorganic and organometallic compounds as reactants. Fragmentation of oxametallacycles as mechanistic probes for oxidation catalysts is a dominant area of this work. His research team uses kinetics, isotope effects, isotopic labeling and structure-reactivity relationships in an attempt to quantitatively describe reaction processes involved in metal-catalyzed oxidations.

“Kevin has made remarkable contributions to both scientific research and education,” said College of Science dean Sastry G. Pantula.

“This is a well-deserved honor and a testament to his commitment to advancing science as well as his service to ACS.  Such outstanding service to the profession is valued very much in our College of Science.”

Gable joined the chemistry faculty at OSU in 1988. He has received the James H. Krueger Teaching Award in 2008 and the Milton Harris Teaching Award in 1996. The awards are given from the OSU Department of Chemistry to recognize outstanding excellence in teaching.

Gable graduated summa cum laude from Miami University, where he earned his bachelor of science in chemistry. He received both his master’s and PhD from Cornell University.

Click here for more information on the ACS Fellows program and a complete list of all previous honorees.

Watch video of Kevin Gable reflecting on life as a chemist, his current research and career highlights.