El-Sayed was listed as number 17 in Thomson-Reuters listing of the top chemists of the past decade. The ranking covers the time period from January 2000 to October 2010. In that time, El-Sayed published 111 papers in chemistry journals with 10,135 citations. The list also rates the number of citations per paper as a way to measure scientists’ impact on the field, and El-Sayed received 91.31 in this category.

El-Sayed was presented with the U.S. National Medal of Science in 2007 by then-President George W. Bush. His citation reads: “for his seminal and creative contributions to our understanding of the electronic and optical properties of nano-materials and to their applications in nano-catalysis and nano-medicine, for his humanitarian efforts of exchange among countries and for his role in developing the scientific leadership of tomorrow.” In the following year, he was listed among the 100 most influential people in the state of Georgia.

At Georgia Tech, El-Sayed is the director of the Laser Dynamics Laboratory. His lab studies the conversion of electronic energy in a wide variety of structures such as semiconductors (quantum dots) and metallic nanostructures. Among his most promising current areas of research are using lasers and gold nanorods to fight cancerous tumors under the skin.

El-Sayed came to Georgia Tech in 1994 and is currently the Julius Brown Chair and Regents’ Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry. He was on the faculty at the University of California at Los Angeles from 1961-94. He earned his doctorate from Florida State University and his bachelor’s degree from Ain Shams University in Egypt.

Jean-Luc Bredas was listed as number 84 in Thomson-Reuters listing of the top materials scientists of the past decade. In that time, Bredas published 50 papers in materials science journals with 2,177 citations and an impact factor of 43.54.

Bredas was a member of the team that received the Descartes Prize of the European Union in 2003. He was awarded the Quinquennial Prize of the National Fund for Scientific Research in Belgium in 2000 and the Francqui Prize in 1997.  In 2010, he received the Charles H. Stone Award of the American Chemical Society.

At Georgia Tech, Bredas is a member of the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics (for which he is in charge of international relations) and a co-director of the Center for Computational Molecular Science and Technology. His work seeks to uncover the chemical and physical properties of novel organic materials and includes research on organic solar cells as well as organic light-emitting diodes for potential use in visual displays and lighting.

Bredas is a Regents’ Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech. He is also a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and the Vasser Woolley and Georgia Research Alliance Chair in Molecular Design. He holds an extraordinary professorship at the University of Mons in Belgium and an honorary professorship at the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. Bredas came to Tech in 2003 from the University of Arizona. He earned his doctoral and bachelor’s degrees from the University of Namur in Belgium.