Introduction to the special issue in honour of Jerry Atwood

Jerry Lee Atwood was born in Springfield, Missouri, USA in 1942. He attended Southwest Missouri State University, where he obtained his BS degree in 1964. He carried out graduate research with Galen Stuckey at the University of Illinois, where he obtained his PhD in 1968. He was immediately appointed as an Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama, where he rose through Associate Professor (1972) to full Professor in 1978. In 1994, he was appointed Curators’ Professor and Chair at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Jerry’s career spans more than 700 scientific publications, which have together been cited a staggering 23 000 times. His research interests revolve around a number of themes in supramolecular chemistry, with his most recent focus being on gas sorption and separation, the self-assembly of giant non-covalent capsules and the control of encapsulated space. He has also made significant contributions to liquid clathrate chemistry, main group chemistry and non-covalent anion binding. He founded the journals Supramolecular Chemistry (1992) and the Journal of Inclusion Phenomena (1983). He has edited an enormous range of seminal works in supramolecular chemistry, including the five-volume series Inclusion Compounds (1984 and 1991) and the eleven-volume Comprehensive Supramolecular Chemistry (1996). He is co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Supramolecular Chemistry (2004) and a co-author of the textbook Supramolecular Chemistry (2000). In 2000, he was awarded the Izatt-Christensen Prize in Supramolecular Chemistry.

Jerry joined NJC in 2003, initially as a member of the International Editorial Advisory Board. Following a ten year term as US Associate Editor for the RSC journal Chemical Communications, he then agreed to take on the role of Co-Editor-in-Chief of NJC in 2006. In 2007, Jerry turned 65 years young, and it seems a fitting tribute to his years of service to scientific research and publishing to produce this special 65th birthday issue in his honour. The quality of the manuscripts we have received, and the alacrity with which the invitations to contribute have been accepted by Jerry’s peers, colleagues, former co-workers and friends, demonstrate very clearly the significance of his ongoing contribution to science and to scientific publishing. Since turning 65, Jerry has shown no sign of slowing down, and remains a tremendously warm, generous and thoughtful contributor to the community, if famously somewhat elusive! It has been my very great pleasure to work with Jerry for over 15 years, initially as a research co-worker, and more recently as a co-author and co-editor. His career and attitude to life, both in science and in general, has been a tremendous inspiration to me and to many others like me. I look forward to many more years of successful science and Jerry’s famous tall stories.

Jonathan W. Steed

(Associate Editor)

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