Professor James Tour

I wanted to become a policeman but I was unable to enter the police academy because I was colour-blind, so I thought I would study forensic science instead because I enjoyed chemistry in high school. My father recommended that I get a general degree in chemistry instead and then focus on forensics in a graduate programme. 

The fact that I took my father’s advice when I was 17 happily amazes me.

After taking organic chemistry in college, I knew I found the career for a lifetime – I love that subject.

I was deeply influenced by Professor Ei-ichi Negishi, the man who taught my first organic chemistry class when I was 19, and who then became my PhD advisor, and who went on to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2010. I was also influenced by Professor Negishi’s mentor, Professor H.C. Brown, the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1979, and my post-doctoral advisor, Professor B.M. Trost.

My wife. She has stood by me since we met when we were both 20 years old. Always encouraging me in my moments of melancholy and reminding me that I will succeed. And my faith in God – if I make his word my meditation, I “will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season.”

Overcoming the feeling that I could never do well professionally. Maybe others are sure of themselves the day they start their professorial careers. Not me. But that feeling has caused me to work harder than others, longer hours than others, even decades into my career.

When I see our discoveries move into the industry and help humankind. And when I can encourage a student to press on, and I see them succeed abundantly.

The ability to easily store gases, like hydrogen gas, to make fuel cell cars a widespread reality.

Carbon. It forms one of the strongest bonds in the universe, it is stable to water and air, it provides the chemistry of life, it can be bonded to most of the other elements in the Periodic Table, and it is the most controllable element in molecular construction.