10:25 a.m., April 22, 2009----Svilen Bobev, assistant professor of solid-state and inorganic chemistry at the University of Delaware, is the recipient of the 2009 ExxonMobil Solid State Chemistry Faculty Fellowship.

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The award, which carries a $10,000 unrestricted grant, recognizes young, untenured scientists who have made substantial contributions to the discipline of solid-state chemistry and have the potential to emerge as leaders in the field. It is funded by the ExxonMobil Foundation and administered by the American Chemical Society's Division of Inorganic Chemistry.

Bobev will receive the award at the American Chemical Society's national meeting in Washington, D.C., in August.

“Svilen is an incredibly creative and prolific synthetic chemist, and the world at large is noticing,” said Prof. Klaus Theopold, chairperson of UD's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “Having young colleagues like him makes our business exciting and bodes well for the future of our department and the University.”

“It is a great honor to receive such recognition,” Bobev said. “Despite the fact it is an individual award, I am not sure I could have earned it without the unconditional support of my mentors and colleagues, and the hard work and dedication of my students and post-docs. I am grateful to all of them.”

Bobev's research focuses on the synthesis, structure, and physical properties of novel intermetallic compounds formed from the rare earth metals, which include the lanthanide series on the periodic table, and selected semi-metals, including silicon, germanium, and tin.

The rare earth metals have numerous scientific and industrial applications as catalysts, lasers, and high-performance magnets in bearings, switches, and motors. Bobev is working to reveal the basic principles that make these magnetic and superconducting materials work.

While investigating the structural relationships and magnetism in compounds of the lanthanide elements, Bobev and his research group already have discovered numerous new materials and recently embarked on a project to develop new intermetallic systems for thermoelectric applications.

Bobev joined the University of Delaware faculty in 2004. He won the National Science Foundation's highly competitive Faculty Early Career Development Award in 2008 and also is the recipient of the 2009 American Crystallographic Association's Margaret C. Etter Early Career Award.

A native of Bulgaria, Bobev received B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemistry from the University of Sofia. He earned his Ph.D. in chemistry under the direction of Slavi Sevov at the University of Notre Dame.

He did postgraduate work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where he received the prestigious Director's Fellowship and worked at both the Manuel Lujan Jr. Neutron Scattering Center (LANSCE) led by Alan Hurd, and the Condensed Matter and Thermal Physics Group (MPA) led by John Sarrao.

As a postdoctoral fellow, Bobev also worked with Susan Kauzlarich of the University of California Davis as a junior scientist awardee of the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter (ICAM).

Article by Tracey Bryant
Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson