On April 25, the Department of Chemistry, Institute of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery (ICB&DD), and the College of Arts and Sciences honored Véronique Gouverneur with the 2025 Ojima Distinguished Lectureship Award in Chemistry. The event took place at the Charles B. Wang Center.
The award was established in 2020 to commemorate Professor Iwao Ojima’s 75th birthday, funded by an endowment from the Ojima family. It aims to support eminent scholars like Véronique Gouverneur in enriching the Department of Chemistry and Stony Brook University.
Stanislaus Wong, distinguished professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry, delivered opening remarks, expressing gratitude to Professor Iwao Ojima and his wife Yoko for their generosity and philanthropic work. Wong highlighted Professor Ojima’s invaluable contributions as a mentor and colleague within the department.
Jeffrey Lipshultz, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, introduced Véronique Gouverneur who presented a lecture titled “Rethinking Fluorine Chemistry with Global Challenges in Mind.”
Gouverneur completed her PhD at the Catholic University of Louvain under Léon Ghosez’s guidance. She conducted postdoctoral research at Scripps with Richard Lerner before joining University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg as a lecturer. In 1998, she moved to Oxford where she became Waynflete Professor in 2022. That same year, she founded FluoRok to commercialize advances made in her lab regarding fluorine chemistry.
Her accolades include prestigious awards such as the Davy Medal from the Royal Society in 2024 and Henri Moissan Prize for Fluorine Chemistry in 2022. She also received the Arthur C. Cope Award from ACS that year—one of only two women recipients over five decades—and several other honors throughout her career.
Gouverneur’s research focuses on creating new strategies for synthesizing fluorine-containing molecules beneficial across life sciences and materials science sectors like PET imaging. Her recent work includes developing sustainable methods for producing essential chemicals like fluorides used in medicine and battery technology while addressing global challenges like decarbonization.
Following her lecture, Professor Iwao Ojima presented Gouverneur with an award plaque.
Professor Iwao Ojima holds degrees from The University of Tokyo and joined Stony Brook University’s Department of Chemistry as an associate professor in 1983. He has held various positions including department chair from 1997-2003; he is currently founding director for ICB&DD since its inception in 2003.
Ojima has received numerous prestigious honors recognizing his contributions to chemical sciences including national awards across four different disciplines from ACS: Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award; E.B Hershberg Award; ACS Award for Creative Work on Fluorine Chemistry; Ernest Guenther Award among others.
