Activating Unreactive Substrates: The Role of Secondary Interactions

Carsten Bolm became Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Marburg (Germany) in 1993, and since 1996 he has been full professor for Organic Chemistry at the RWTH Aachen University (Germany). He held visiting professorships at universities in Madison, Wisconsin (USA), Paris (France), Florence (Italy), Milan (Italy), Namur (Belgium) and Tokyo (Japan). His list of awards include the Heinz-Maier-Leibnitz prize, the ADUC-Jahrespreis for habilitands, the annual prize for Chemistry of the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, the Otto-Klung prize, the Otto-Bayer award, a fellowship of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and the Prix Franco-Allemand. With Wiley-VCH he edited books (together with Matthias Beller) on Transition Metals for Organic Chemistry and (together with Takeshi Toru) on Organosulfur Chemistry in Asymmetric Synthesis.

Ekkehardt Hahn became Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the Free University of Berlin in 1992. Since 1998 he is full professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Münster (Germany). He held visiting professorships at the University of California, Berkeley (USA), the Universidad de Zaragoza (Spain), the National University of Singapore, and the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Academia Sinica, Shanghai (PR China). His lists of awards includce a Karl Winnacker Fellowship and the election to the Academia de Ciencas Exactas, Fisicas, Quimicas y Naturales de Zaragoza, Spain. He holds a Julius von Haast visiting Professorship at the University of Auckland (New Zealand) and since 2004 serves as Permanent Secretary of the International Conference on Organometallic Chemistry