10:28 a.m., March 23, 2009----Juan Carlos Rodriguez-Reyes, a doctoral candidate in the University of Delaware's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has been presented the inaugural Brennie E. Hackley Jr. Award for Excellence in Research.

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The award was presented during a departmental colloquium March 6. Rodriguez-Reyes is in the research group of Andrew Teplyakov, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry.

Rodriguez-Reyes received a bachelor's degree in chemistry and a master's in materials science and engineering from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru.

He is studying surface chemistry in both aqueous and ultra high vacuum conditions for application in microelectronics, heterogeneous catalysis, and other fields of surface science. The results of his work have resulted in the publication of eight papers, for which he is the lead or sole author, and six presentations at scientific conferences.

The Brennie E. Hackley Jr. Award for Excellence in Research will be given in perpetuity, thanks to a generous endowment established by his family.

The late Dr. Hackley received his master's degree in 1954 and his doctorate in 1957 from the University of Delaware, working with the late Prof. Betty Dyer. He was the first African-American to receive a doctorate in chemistry from UD.

He served as the chief scientist and scientific adviser to the commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense at the Edgewood Area of the Aberdeen (Md.) Proving Grounds. His career encompassed a remarkable 57 years of continuous government service.

His 75 scientific publications and 15 U.S. patents contributed significantly to the development of medical antidotes for chemical warfare agents. Following his death in 2006, he was posthumously awarded the U.S. government's Exceptional Civilian Service Medal.

Dr. Hackley's widow, Ethel, to whom he had been married for 57 years, and daughter, Dr. Michele Hackley Johnson, were honored guests at the colloquium. Mrs. Hackley, who earned a master's in chemistry from Howard University, also worked at Edgewood. Their daughter is an associate professor of radiology and otolaryngology at the Yale University School of Medicine and the director of Interventional Neuroradiology at the Yale Cerebrovascular Center. She, too, is a UD graduate, having received her bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1975.