NWO Awards Spinoza Prize

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) honored the winners of the NWO Spinoza Prize for 2004 at a ceremony this past November in The Hague. This prize is the Netherlands’ top award to researchers for their scientific work. Each winner received C1.5 million ($1.7 million) and a statuette of 17th-century Dutch philosopher and theologian Benedict de Spinoza.

Ben Feringa, Jacobus van ’t Hoff Distinguished Professor of molecular sciences at the University of Groningen, was hailed by NWO for his “work on molecular motors and extremely selective catalysts.” He invented the first molecular motor powered by light, and his research group focuses on design and synthesis of complex molecules that can be used as molecular motors, switches, or catalysts.

NWO cited Jaap Sinninghe Damsté for his “biological, geological, and chemical work on fossil molecules in sediments.” According to NWO, “his research into chemical fossils rewrote the theories about the carbon and sulphur cycles.” As a molecular biogeochemist, he analyzes specific organic compounds and uses the information to reconstruct the life and climate of earlier epochs. Sinninghe Damsté is head of marine biogeochemistry and toxicology at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and a professor of molecular paleontology at Utrecht University.

Astronomer Michiel van der Klis received the award for his “pioneering research into x-ray radiation from binary stars,” according to the citation. Van der Klis is a professor of astronomy at the University of Amsterdam’s astronomical institute. In the 1990s, his group discovered the first x-ray star that rotated at 400 times per second, the existence of which had been predicted 16 years previously but had not yet been proved. His studies provide data about the mass, radius, and rotational speed of neutron stars and black holes, as well as insights into the general theory of relativity.