Chemist's NSF Funding: Four Decades, and Counting

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(Last updated 8/21/02)

Research Feature . . .

CHEMIST'S NSF FUNDING: FOUR DECADES, AND COUNTING

by Pam Frost Gorder

Sheldon Shore was sitting in the Washington D.C. headquarters of the National Science Foundation (NSF) one day in the early 1970s, when his program officer gave the kind of career advice nobody wants to hear.

"You do very good work, but it's getting harder and Harder to fund you," he began.

Sheldon Shore

Basic research, such as Shore's groundbreaking study of compounds called boron hydrides, received generous government sponsorship immediately after the Russians launched Sputnik in 1957. But by the 1970s, a turbulent economy prompted the NSF to favor projects that could provide measurable public benefit in just a few years.

It was then that the NSF program officer suggested that Shore turn away from his career-long devotion to boron and try something new.

Another chemist would have left that conversation feeling heartbroken. And maybe Shore did feel that way, a little.

"I was overwhelmed," he said. "But in retrospect, it was probably the best professional advice I ever got."

Shore, then in his 40s, returned to his lab at Ohio State and formulated a plan -- one that not only secured financial support, but also helped him enjoy his career a whole lot more.
He decided to apply what he'd learned about boron to emerging areas of chemistry, ones that dealt with making new materials. His major efforts are now dedicated to organometallic chemistry and lanthanide chemistry, and he has been a major contributor to the area known as transition metal cluster chemistry.

His plan seems to be working; with his latest grant, which runs through 2005, Shore has earned 44 years of NSF funding, on grants for which he is the sole principal investigator. He travels all over the world, working with people he says he never would have met, had he never tried to branch out.

His secret for success? A careful choice of research partners. Shore does basic research, and collaborates with people who develop applications. In doing so, he fills a niche and keeps himself intellectually honest by working only on projects he finds truly interesting.

Since joining the Ohio State faculty in 1957, he's guided more than 70 graduate students to degrees, most of them doctoral. He's received more than a dozen awards and recognitions, including both the Ohio State Distinguished Scholar and Distinguished Lecturer awards, and was named the Charles H. Kimberly Chair of Chemistry. He's even earned twelve patents, what many would consider the ultimate prize for applied research.

Meanwhile, he carries on his studies of boron. Grants from agencies such as the Army Research Office (ARO) and the Petroleum Research Fund (PRF) have supported that work.

"So it's not as if I sold out, you see," he laughed.

The ARO support led to a patent for preparing high purity diborane, an essential ingredient for implanting boron in computer chips. The University licensed that process to industry. The PRF work spawned boron compounds that are currently being evaluated by Rolf Barth, professor of pathology, and Werner Tjarks, and Robert Lee, both assistant professors of pharmacy. The compounds could one day be used in boron neutron capture therapy -- an emerging cancer treatment that precisely targets tumors with radiation.

"When I come to a new area, I may be coming from left field, but that just means I bring something different to the table," Shore said.

Most of his NSF grants supported two- or three-year projects. The first, a two-year grant from 1961, gave Shore $23,000 to study boron-oxygen heterocylces, ring-shaped molecules that today serve as platforms for building chemical agents for medicine and industry.

The latest grant, a three-year contract for nearly $500,000, fuels a long-standing collaboration with Professor Jean-Marie Basset, director of the Laboratoire de Chemie Organometalliaque de Surface at CPE Lyon, a French research institute. Through that work, Shore has developed procedures for preparing nanoparticles on oxide surfaces.

For Mark Keane of the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Kentucky, Shore has developed catalysts to convert phenol -- an industrial waste -- into an ingredient of nylon.

Shore also develops catalysts for Umit Ozkan, professor of chemical engineering and associate dean for research in the College of Engineering. She is developing new ways to remove nitrogen oxide emissions from the smokestacks of coal-burning power plants.

Ozkan praised Shore's vast insight and experience. "He and his students have developed some very elegant techniques for molecular architecture of bimetallic nano-scale materials, many of which have interesting properties which have never been examined before," she said. "It has been a privilege to collaborate with Sheldon. He continues to be an inspiration for me and my students."

Versatility has enabled Shore to change with the times. When he started out in 1957, the grant process was much more informal. Any good researcher could get an NSF grant, he said. Now money is tight, and competition brutal.

Larry Anderson, professor of chemistry, agreed that the NSF grant programs are now among the most competitive in the nation. In Shore's area of inorganic chemistry, only a few grants are offered each year. "To achieve 44 years of funding means he's been a leader in his field for a very long time," Anderson said.

"Such long-running success is proof that Sheldon's colleagues around the world continue to see his work as relevant and interesting," he added. NSF relies on the opinion of peer reviewers -- scientists who work in the same field as the applicant -- to decide which projects receive funding.

Even when reviewers have something negative to say, as Shore's early NSF program officer did, Anderson said their comments are important. "Without that kind of scrutiny and guidance, it would be very difficult to have a productive career. And I'd say Sheldon has had a productive career and a half."

Throughout his years at Ohio State, Shore's consistent wit has grown into stuff of legend. With an endless supply of one-liners and Snoopy takeoffs -- he's known in chemistry circles as the "Red Boron" -- he puts people at ease, and turns collaborators into friends.

His impact can be seen on the wall at the entrance to the Department of Chemistry office. A hand-drawn cartoon admonishes students, "The chemistry department is very strict! You must wear goggles when streaking through the labs."

The editors of the Journal of Organometallic Chemistry praised Shore's sense of humor as well as his scientific insight, when they dedicated an entire issue to him on his 70th birthday. Shore's colleagues and intellectual progeny from around the world composed some 40 research papers, all related to boron chemistry, in his honor.

"Sheldon emphasized that this issue does not signify retirement," the editors wrote, "and we look forward to new developments in his on-going chemistry. But it is appropriate to pause after three score and ten years and savor the moment. His friends and colleagues, those who have contributed to this issue, and those who could not, wish him the very best in his continuing chemistry and life."