UMSL scientist named National Academy of Inventors Fellow

George Gokel continues to garner attention for his innovative work in the sciences.

Gokel, Distinguished Professor of Science at the University of Missouri–St. Louis and director of the Center for Nanoscience at UMSL, has been named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

The distinction is accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society.

Gokel is an expert in the area of supramolecular chemistry. He has published more than 400 peer-reviewed papers, authored, co-authored or edited 10 books and is named as an inventor on more than 15 patents.

Gokel was among 143 innovators elected fellow status. Other St. Louis academic heavy weights in the 2013 class include Washington University Chancellor Mark Wrighton and Richard Bucholz, professor and vice chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. Henry Foley, executive vice president for academic affairs for the University of Missouri System was also accorded fellow status.

“I am honored to be included among such a distinguished group of individuals, many of whom I know and all of whom I admire,” Gokel said. “This recognition would have been impossible without my collaboration with other researchers and the many wonderful students that have worked in and are working in my laboratory. At UMSL, in particular, I have enjoyed excellent support from my colleagues in the Office of Research Administration, without whose efforts no patents would ever be filed or granted.”

The new fellows will be inducted during the 3rd annual conference of the National Academy of Inventors March 7 in Alexandria, Va. The inductees will be presented with a special trophy and a rosette pin.

This past spring Gokel was honored by the Academy of Science of St. Louis, with the James B. Eads Award. It recognizes a distinguished individual for outstanding achievement in engineering or technology.

Gokel sits on the editorial boards of numerous scientific journals and was named to a scientific review committee at the National Institutes of Health through 2013. He came to UMSL in 2006 after 13 years at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where he was a professor of molecular biology and pharmacology. Gokel earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Tulane University in New Orleans and a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship at UCLA. His research took him to some of the nation’s top universities.

The inventors and innovators elected to the rank of NAI fellow were nominated by their peers.