Cynthia M. Friend

 Cynthia M. Friend is the Theodore Williams Richards Professor of Chemistry and the Director of the Rowland Institute for Science at Harvard University. Friend has made many contributions in surface chemistry through her research in heterogeneous catalysis, which spans a wide range of materials complexity and reaction conditions from ultrahigh vacuum to atmospheric pressure. She has established predictive, molecular-scale understanding of the mechanisms for oxygen-assisted heterogeneous selective reactions on metallic and nanoporous gold, e.g. methanol to methyl formate, with potential for developing sustainable chemical processes with enhanced energy efficiency. She has also developed structure-reactivity relationships for desulfurization chemistry and a mechanistic understanding of photochemical transformations on TiO2. She has achieved these advances by integrating molecular imaging, reactivity studies, surface spectroscopy, and theoretical tools. She is the recipient of the George C. Olah Award, Alexander von Humboldt Senior Research Award, American Chemical Society Garvan Medal, Distinguished Young Alumni Award, Presidential Young Investigator Award, and IBM Faculty Development Award.