Martin J. Stillman, Wins 2025 E. W. R. Steacie Award

The 2025 E. W. R. Steacie Award, recognizing outstanding contributions to chemistry in Canada, has been awarded to Martin J. Stillman, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Western Ontario.

Dr. Stillman completed his Ph.D. at the University of East Anglia, UK, where he investigated the electronic structures of porphyrins and related systems under Professor Andrew Thomson. A postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Alberta further expanded his expertise in bioinorganic chemistry, setting the stage for a prolific career.

Since joining the University of Western Ontario in 1975, Dr. Stillman has made significant advances in bioinorganic chemistry, particularly in the study of metalloproteins and their optical properties. His groundbreaking work has earned continuous funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) since 1976.

Martin Stillman’s research team has used creative experimental solutions to solve challenging problems in the field of bioinorganic chemistry. With his team he has published more than 280 papers in international journals, numerous chapters in monographs and has delivered many invited talks and lectures around the world. His group has exploited the powerful probes of ESI-mass spectrometry, metal-NMR, many optical spectroscopy techniques, synchrotron methods, and advanced computational techniques to explore the molecular properties of these biologically-important systems. In total his group include over 200 undergraduates, graduates and PDFs stretching back to his first students in 1975. His advances in protein metallation pathway analysis and metallation status together with a deep understanding of the electronic structures of tetrapyrroles depend heavily on the remarkable skills of each of his students in applying quantitative and theoretical analysis of data to obtain mechanistic, functional, structural, and electronic information for large molecules of bioinorganic interest.

Professor Stillman will present his award lecture entitled "Metallation pathways for Cu(I), Zn(II), As(III), and Bi(III) binding to human metallothionein isoforms 1, 2, and 3" at the CSC 2025 meeting in Ottawa in June 2025."

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