James Rusling, professor of chemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and professor of cell biology at the UConn Health Center, received the ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry Award in Electrochemistry from the American Chemical Society (ACS). The award recognizes “an individual who through scholarly activity has definitely and uniquely advanced the field of electrochemistry.”

Rusling has built an internationally recognized research program in electrochemistry, encompassing over the years such areas as electrochemical catalysis for pollutant remediation, automated computerized mechanism determination, electrocatalysis in micelles and microemulsions, electrochemical biocatalysis, biosensors and sensor arrays for drug toxicity and early cancer screening, and thin film enzyme electrochemistry. He has consistently pioneered novel research at the interfaces of chemistry, biology, and nanomaterials.

He has published nearly 300 peer reviewed articles in top journals, and his research has attracted major funding from NIH, NSF, USDA, and other sources.

In 1996, he wrote an influential book covering computer data analysis in electrochemistry and other disciplines, J.F. Rusling and T.F. Kumosinski, Nonlinear Computer Modeling of Chemical and Biochemical Data (Academic Press, 1996). More recently he edited two monographs, Biomolecular Films and Modified Electrodes. His research papers have been highly influential to other electrochemists and biomolecular scientists. From 2002 to 2009, he was American editor for the journal Electrochemical Communications.

Rusling is an elected Fellow of the U.S. Electrochemical Society and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. He has won many awards, and this year, was awarded a Walton Research Fellowship from Science Foundation Ireland to support sabbatical research on devices for early cancer detection at the National University of Ireland at Galway.