Harry Gray named cowinner of Harvey Prizeby Israel Institute of Technology

PASADENA—For the third time this spring, Harry Gray of the California Institute of Technology has been named recipient of a major scientific honor.

Gray has been named cowinner of the Harvey Prize, presented annually by the Israel Institute of Technology to a scholar or scientist who has worked toward promoting goodwill between Israel and the nations of the world. Gray, Caltech's Beckman Professor of Chemistry and director of the Beckman Institute, received the award and the $50,000 monetary prize in Haifa June 1.

Earlier this month, Gray was named a foreign member of Great Britain's Royal Society, as well as a member of the American Philosophical Society.

In conferring the prize on Gray, the Israel Institute of Technology cited him for his pioneering contributions to inorganic and bioinorganic chemistry, and particularly for "his studies of reaction mechanisms and the nature of the chemical bond in transition metal complexes, and of the long-range electron transfer in proteins."

The Harvey Prize was begun in 1972 by the late Leo M. Harvey of Los Angeles. The prize is awarded annually as a tribute to outstanding scholars and scientists throughout the world, and derives from a $1 million endowment.

Gray, a Caltech professor since 1965, was named the Arnold O. Beckman Professor of Chemistry in 1981, served as chair of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering from 1978 to 1984, and became head of the Beckman Institute in 1986. He received the National Medal of Science in 1986.