UC Riverside alumnus Richard R. Schrock has won the 2005 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Schrock graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry from UCR in 1967.

Schrock won the Nobel Prize for the development of a chemical reaction now used daily in the chemical industry for the efficient and more environmentally friendly production of important pharmaceuticals, fuels, synthetic fibers and many other products.

"UCR congratulates Dr. Schrock, who is among our most distinguished alumni," said Chancellor France Córdova. "He is a shining example of the outstanding quality of our undergraduate degree recipients and the faculty who nurture them."

Schrock, the Frederick G. Keyes Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shares the prize with Yves Chauvin of the Institut Français du Pétrole and Robert H. Grubbs of Caltech "for the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis."

Together, the laureates' contributions "have already assumed major significance in the chemicals industry, opening up new opportunities for synthesizing molecules that will streamline the development and industrial production of pharmaceuticals, plastics and other materials," according to the Nobel committee.

Thanks to the work of the laureates, production is also cheaper and more environmentally friendly, an MIT press release notes. Catalytic metathesis shortens the synthesis routes for these materials, which means fewer byproducts. Further, the control made possible by the reaction allows more efficient manipulation of raw materials.

Schrock obtained his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1971. He spent a year as a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at Cambridge University followed by three years at the Central Research and Development Department of E.I. duPont de Nemours and Co. before joining the MIT faculty in 1975.

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. He was associate editor of Organometallics for eight years and has published more than 400 research papers.

In 1996 Schrock received the American Chemical Society Award in Inorganic Chemistry for his efforts to develop cleaner and more efficient ways to manufacture chemicals. In addition, he has received the ACS Award in Organometallic Chemistry (1985), the Harrison Howe Award of the Rochester ACS section (1990), an Alexander von Humboldt Award (1995), the Bailar Medal from the University of Illinois (1998), an ACS Cope Scholar Award in 2001 and the Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson Medal in 2002.

Schrock was born Jan. 4, 1945, in Berne, Ind. He and his wife, Nancy F. Carlson, have two children.