In 1971, the American Chemical Society announced the Priestley Medal was awarded to Frederick D. Rossini by the American Chemical Society “to recognize distinguished services to chemistry,” the  Society’s most prestigious award.

Rossini was one of the preeminent thermodynamicists of the twentieth century. The thermochemical data he produced and catalogued continue to be invaluable not only in fundamental science (for example in conformational analysis and molecular mechanics) but also in applied science, notably in the petroleum industry, which, through the American Petroleum Institute, funded much of Rossini’s research in this area.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

He will long be remembered for the enormous volume of broadly useful thermochemical data that he assembled, put on permanent record, and, in important part, generated.