In 1954, the Priestley Medal was awarded to W. Albert Noyes, Jr. by the American Chemical Society “to recognize distinguished services to chemistry,” the Society’s most prestigious award.

Noyes, a pioneer of photochemistry, is well-documented in over 200 publications. His early work dealt with the identification of primary photochemical events and their connections to spectroscopic facts. The classic text with Philip Leighton, The Photochemistry of Gases (1941), describes much of this, and other work, up to 1941.

Beyond his laboratory work, Noyes’s scientific career reflects constant attention to professional activities with the U.S. government, with the American Chemical Society, with universities, and with a number of industrial laboratories.