ITHACA, N.Y. -- Geoffrey Coates, a Cornell University assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology, has been awarded a David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship for Science and Engineering, designed to support young researchers.

The fellowship will support research in Coates' laboratory directed toward the discovery of catalysts for the synthesis of biodegradable polymers from bio-renewable resources, such as carbon dioxide.

Each year the Packard Foundation invites 50 universities to submit two nominations each, and from this list the foundation awards 24 fellowships. Several Cornell researchers have won the fellowships in the past, including Rey-Huei Chen, assistant professor of molecular biology and genetics; Daniel Ralph, assistant professor of physics; Yuri Suzuki, assistant professor of materials science and engineering; and Eva Tardos, professor of operations research and industrial engineering.

Coates earned a doctoral degree in organic chemistry from Stanford University in 1994. He joined the Cornell faculty in 1997, after postdoctoral studies at the California Institute of Technology.

Last year he was selected by Technology Review magazine as one of 100 young innovators under the age of 35 "who exemplify the spirit of innovation in science, technology, business and the arts." The magazine, published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, described Coates' research as "designing improved polymers by trying to understand how a catalyst affects a polymer's architecture -- and hence its properties. The goal is to be able to make the catalyst structure that leads to just the polymer properties you want."

Last year Coates also received a four-year, $328,000 Faculty Early Career Development Program grant from the National Science Foundation. This year, among other awards, he has won an Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, the Union Carbide Innovations Recognition Award and an Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation Young Investigator Award. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation was created in 1964 by David Packard and Lucile Salter Packard. In 1988 the foundation established the Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering to allow the nation's most promising young professors to pursue their science and engineering research with few funding restrictions and limited paperwork requirements. The fellowships are aimed at researchers working in areas that are not generously funded by government and other agencies.