On Jun. 4, 1990, the American Chemical Society announced that Harry B. Gray had been named the recipient of the 1991 Priestley Medal ‘for his numerous contributions to chemistry’. The Priestley Medal is the American Chemical Society’s highest honor.

Gray, who is also director of Caltech’s new Beckman Institute, is one of the most dynamic chemists in the U.S. today. His research in inorganic photochemistry is helping to point the way toward artificial photosynthetic systems. And his pioneering bioinorganic studies, which focus on longrange electron transfer in proteins, are elucidating the details of some of the most important reactions in biology.