Barry B. Snider Credit:
Courtesy of Barry B. Snider
The American Chemical Society Division of Organic Chemistry (DOC) is awarding Barry B. Snider, Professor of Chemistry Emeritus at Brandeis University, the 2026 Paul G. Gassman Distinguished Service Award. The award recognizes extraordinary and sustained service to the DOC and the organic chemistry community at large.
Snider has been a 23+-year member of the DOC’s executive committee, serving as councilor, secretary, treasurer, and chair. During his service, Snider modernized procedures from paper to electronic systems, strengthened the division’s endowment portfolio, led major bylaw revisions, and expanded roles for efficiency and member engagement. Snider is known for leaving each position he held better than he found it, and he continues to mentor those in the roles today.
At Brandeis, Snider has served as chair of the Chemistry Department twice, for a total of 12 years. His research focuses on developing new methods for the construction of highly functionalized organic molecules and the synthesis of natural products. Additionally, Snider has authored more than 300 scholarly publications.
He was named an ACS fellow in 2011. He has also been named a Sloan Research Fellow, an Arthur C. Cope Scholar, and a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. Snider has held the role of a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science fellowship and was appointed an honorary professor at the East China University of Science and Technology. He has served as a member and chair of the National Institutes of Health’s Division of Research Grants Medicinal Chemistry Study Section and currently serves as the secretary on the board of the nonprofit that publishes Organic Reactions.
The DOC sees Snider’s contributions to the community as having improved it for all members, earning him this distinguished award.
