Marinda Wu has been selected as the recipient for the 2022 Radding Service Award. The criteria to be selected for the Radding Award are:
- Member of the American Chemical Society for more than 20 years.
- Demonstrated dedicated and unselfish service to ACS members over a sustained period-of-time.
- Provided leadership through elected and appointed ACS positions at local, regional, and national levels.
- Made significant contributions to industrial, applied, or academic chemistry.
Marinda Li Wu has over 45 years of experience in the chemical industry. She worked many years in research for Dow Chemical R&D where she earned 7 U.S. patents in advanced batteries and membrane separations, and as a business leader for Dow Plastics Marketing where she created partnerships between industry, education, government, and community leaders. These partnerships resulted in the nation’s first municipal curbside plastics recycling program for all mixed plastics and in national model recycling programs for schools and industry. Dr. Wu subsequently held management roles at several smaller chemical companies. A strong advocate of STEM education, she founded “Science is Fun!” to interest young students in science and enhance public support for science education.
As an ACS member for over 50 years, Dr. Wu has served in many national and regional leadership roles. These include being elected as the first Asian American ACS President (2013), Board of Directors (2006-2014), Councilor (1996-present), and Chair of the Committee on Economic and Professional Affairs (CEPA) (2003-2005) where she created a Globalization Task Force that brought out the importance of globalization to jobs and careers of ACS members and students. Dr. Wu has also served on numerous other national ACS committees including Local Section Activities Committee (LSAC), Committee on Chemistry and Public Affairs (CCPA), Committee on Public Relations and Communications (CPRC), Petroleum Research Funds (PRF), and Budget & Finance (B&F) as well as the ACS Board Committees on Professional & Member Relations (P&MR), Public Affairs and Public Relations (PA&PR) and Grants and Awards (G&A).
Dr. Wu has also helped countless students and professionals at all career stages as a certified ACS career consultant for almost 30 years. Dr. Wu was Chair of the Women Chemists Symposium at the Western Regional Meeting in 2006.
At her local ACS California Section level, Dr. Wu was Chair during its Centennial Celebration year in 2001, Chair of the Women Chemists Committee four times, Chair of the Government Affairs Committee, and Chair or member of over half a dozen other committees. She continues to serve on the Executive Committee, actively participating at their monthly meetings. She pioneered the Family Science Night in 1997, introduced the popular Science Cafe programs to support public education and outreach, and co-founded the monthly Career Assistance and Transition Group meetings, providing mentoring and resume reviews to job-seeking chemists for many years.
Dr. Wu served on the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (2012-2015), the International Advisory Board for 45th IUPAC World Chemistry Congress and has also been named an honorary member of the Romanian and Polish Chemical Societies. She is a long-time member of the University of Illinois Chemistry Alumni Advisory Board and the Chinese American Chemical Society Board of Directors (Chair, 2019-2022). She has authored over 70 journal articles, internal Dow research papers, and book chapters, co-edited three ACS Symposium Books, and was invited as plenary speaker for the Federation of Asian Chemical Societies as well as many other international and domestic conferences.
Dr. Wu was elected ACS Fellow in 2015. She received her Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. cum laude with Distinction in Chemistry from The Ohio State University.
By Heddie Nichols, Chair of Radding Award Committee
