Rigoberto Advincula, the UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair of Advanced and Nanostructured Materials, has received the 2026 Roy W. Tess Award, presented by the Division of Polymer Materials: Science and Engineering (PMSE) of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
The Tess Award recognizes outstanding individual contributions to polymers, coatings science, engineering, and technology. The purpose of the award is to encourage interest and progress in coatings science, technology, and engineering.
Advincula, a joint professor in UT’s Departments of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is the first UT faculty member to receive the award, which has been presented annually since 1986. He is also the first honoree from an academic institution, national laboratory, or business based in the state of Tennessee.
“It is a great honor to receive the American Chemical Society Roy W. Tess Award, which recognizes research and leadership both in academia and industry. My fellow awardees have made this connection, and I am happy to have done this through the years,” Advincula said. “It would not have been possible without the hard work of my group and past group members through the years. I am just happy we continue to do this with the university and at ORNL.”
Advincula’s research and group interests are design, synthesis, and characterization of polymers and nanomaterials capable of nanostructuring and self-organization in ultrathin films and coatings. He has been using artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) in self-driving labs (SDL) to make new polymers, an ongoing work at both UT and ORNL. The materials created can have useful features, such as corrosion resistance, stimuli responsiveness, electrical conductivity, energy harvesting, light sensitivity, and environmental safety.
Advincula was named an ACS Fellow in 2010, and a Fellow of both the PMSE and Polymer Chemistry divisions in 2011. In 2015, he served as the chair of the ACS Polymer Chemistry Division. Advincula received the PMSE Arthur Doolittle Award early in 2003, and the Herman Mark Scholar Award from the Polymer Chemistry Division in 2013. This year, he also received the George Stafford Whitby award from the ACS Rubber Division for distinguished teaching and research.
As the Tess Award winner, Advincula receives a $3,000 prize, a plaque, and coverage of expenses to the Fall ACS National Meeting in Chicago, where he will be recognized alongside other awardees during the PMSE/POLY Plenary Lecture and Award Reception. The division will also host an invited symposium in his honor.
Contact
Rhiannon Potkey (rpotkey@utk.edu)