Jack H. Freed, professor of chemistry at Cornell University, has been named the 1998 recipient of the Zavoisky Award, a prestigious recognition by an international panel of scientists.

The award, which recognizes Freed's work in electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), will be presented by the Kazan Physical-Technical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Kazan State University, Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, at a scientific meeting Sept. 22-26.

EPR uses microwave spectroscopy to detect spin-state changes in substances containing unpaired electron spins. Typically the spin state changes can be induced by a few milliwatts of microwave power. The international awards committee cited Freed for being distinguished in his work in EPR "and, in particular, his contribution to multifrequency EPR studies of molecular motion in liquids and restricted media."

The award, given annually since 1991, is named for E.K. Zavoisky who first discovered the EPR effect in Kazan in 1944. Notes Freed, "No one could have dreamed then of the great range of application of the technique today in chemistry, physics, biology, material science and medicine."

Freed, who joined the Cornell faculty in 1963, last year was awarded the American Physical Society's Irving Langmuir Prize in Chemical Physics for his work in the development of EPR.