In memoriam: Professor Sir James Fraser Stoddart

The University of Birmingham wishes to pay tribute to distinguished chemist and colleague Professor Sir J. Fraser Stoddart, who passed away on 30 December 2024, aged 82.

Professor Sir J. Fraser Stoddart began his research at the University of Sheffield in 1970 before joining the University of Birmingham in 1990, where he held the role of Head of School and Haworth Chair of Chemistry until a move to the United States in 1997. He was awarded an honorary degree from Birmingham in 2005.

In 2016, alongside Jean-Pierre Sauvage of the University of Strasbourg and Ben L. Feringa of the University of Groningen, he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for work carried out during his time at Birmingham on the design and synthesis of the world's smallest molecular machines, dramatically changing how chemists can prepare complex assemblies of individually simple components so that useful functions emerge on a tiny scale, fundamental in the development of nanotechnology.

This research paved the way for molecular recognition, self-assembly processes for template-directed mechanically interlocked syntheses, molecular switches, and motor-molecules, advances which formed the basis of the fields of nanoelectronic devices, nanoelectromechanical systems, and molecular machines.

Professor Neil Champness, Head of School of Chemistry, University of Birmingham said:

“Sir Fraser was a remarkable scientist who inspired generations of chemists around the world. His ideas in molecular machines and the application of supramolecular chemistry continue to form the basis of a wide range of research here at the University of Birmingham. Importantly, Sir Fraser also acted as a role model to those who knew him, particularly in the way in which he supported scientists at the beginning of their careers and his legacy will continue long into the future.”

During the course of his career, Professor Stoddart published over 1,300 scientific papers and trained more than 500 graduate and postdoctoral students. He was known for championing young chemists, notably through the American Chemical Society’s Project SEED, which offers research opportunities to economically disadvantaged high school students.

Writing in his Nobel Prize autobiography in 2016, Stoddart said:

"Through all my life’s experiences, the aim has always been the same: to emerge from life’s roller coaster better informed and more knowledgeable about the ways of the world. I have been immensely privileged to be able to practice my hobby almost every day of my life in the presence of highly intelligent and outstandingly gifted young people.”