Blum named 2025 Oklahoma Chemist of the Year

Dr. Frank Blum, right, was awarded Oklahoma Chemist of the Year in March.

Blum named 2025 Oklahoma Chemist of the Year

Monday, April 14, 2025

Media Contact: Elizabeth Gosney | CAS Marketing and Communications Manager | 405-744-7497 | egosney@okstate.edu

On March 1, Dr. Frank Blum of Oklahoma State University's Department of Chemistry was awarded Oklahoma Chemist of the Year at the 66th Annual Oklahoma Pentasectional Meeting of the American Chemical Society.

Since 1971, the Oklahoma chapter of ACS has honored 50 chemists. Blum, who previously served as chair of the OSU Department of Chemistry, is the fourteenth recipient from OSU.

"There are many chemists in Oklahoma because of chemistry's importance to industry," Blum said. "It is an honor to be recognized with my academic and industrial colleagues."

Before coming to OSU in 2010, Blum - who is the H. I. Bartlett Chair of Chemistry and an OSU Regents Professor - spent five years at Drexel University and 24 years at the University of Missouri-Rolla and Missouri University of Science and Technology.

Blum has taught hundreds of OSU students in classes including intermediate physical chemistry to graduate courses in polymer chemistry, spectroscopy, physical chemistry and colloid chemistry. During his tenure at OSU, Blum has created a set of elective courses for chemical professionals that provide practical information along with the chance for students to develop writing and presentation skills. These include What's That Stuff, The Chemistry of Life, The Chemistry of Materials, and The Periodic Table, which came from an idea shared by OSU associate professor Dr. Yolanda Vasquez.

"Chemistry is considered the 'central science' and the basis for advances in environment, energy, health and materials, to name just a few," Blum said. "I try to convey this to students at all levels, especially the introductory levels."

Among his research endeavors, Blum has advanced his understanding of how polymers interact with solid substrates, shown how to make synthetic polymer composites at room temperature, and helped develop the technology for and understanding of superhydrophobic coatings.

In recent years, Blum and his research teams have developed the technology for making useful composites from post-consumer carpets and bottle waste parts-advancements that have the potential to reduce the impact of those materials on the waste stream.

About the ACS Oklahoma Chemist Award

The Oklahoma Chemist Award was initiated in the early 1970s. It was primarily started by Dr. George R. Waller, who was a faculty member in the Biochemistry Department at Oklahoma State University.

Oklahoma is divided into five sections of the American Chemical Society, and each section agreed to support this award annually. The concept for the award was to honor truly outstanding contributions made to science and the state by a chemist in recent years within the State of Oklahoma. Although originally designed to honor research chemists, an amendment was introduced in the 1980s to allow candidates to be nominated who had made extraordinary contributions to chemical education, whether it be to youth or the public in general.

The ACS Oklahoma Pentasectional Meeting brings together chemists from academia and industry within the state once each year to present research results. It is the largest meeting of chemists in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Chemist Award is the most prestigious award given to a chemist in Oklahoma.