I’m delighted and honoured to have been awarded the 2025 James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry for the Public from the American Chemical Society. I travelled to San Diego to receive the award at the ACS Spring Meeting Awards Ceremony last week. Making an infographic on the medal’s composition and those it was named after seemed a fitting way to mark the occasion!
2025 Grady-Stack Award recipient Andy Brunning (second left) is presented with his award by Dorothy J. Phillips, ACS President (first left) and sponsor representatives Silvia S. Jurisson (second right) and Matthew Windsor (first right). Photo Credits: EPNAC.com
The award recognises my chemistry communication through the instantly recognisable Compound Interest infographics shared globally on classroom walls and social media streams. The infographics now number in the hundreds and have reached a global audience, seen by millions online and on social media. They are renowned for their clear communication of the chemistry we regularly encounter, such as the aroma of books, the colours of fireworks, and how to stop avocados browning, making the subject accessible even to those without a science background.
The Grady-Stack Award is presented annually to recognise, encourage and stimulate outstanding reporting directly to the public, with the aim of materially increasing the public’s knowledge and understanding of chemistry, chemical engineering and related fields. Previous winners include Sir Martyn Poliakoff, British science writer Philip Ball, and US science communicator Raychelle Burks.
The stories of Grady and Stack
For this graphic, I also wanted to include detail on the two men the award was named after, which proved surprisingly challenging! The American Chemical Society’s award page does not detail the background of the prize, and only after a lengthy trawl through the C&EN archives was I able to surface some information about the lives and achievements of James T. Grady and James H. Stack and the reason their names became attached to the award I received.
James T. Grady attended Harvard College and Columbia University Law School. A period as News Editor of the New York Herald Tribune overlapped with some time teaching journalism at the School of Journalism at Columbia. He later became the managing editor of the ACS News Service from 1923 until 1948, and was also the Director of Public Information at Columbia University from 1918 until 1946.
On the occasion of Grady’s death in November 1954, a C&EN editorial lauded him as “one of the great public relations figures of his time” with a “rare ability to distill from the most formidable reports their significance for the public.” He was credited with changing the attitudes of both scientists and journalists to the reporting of chemistry, encouraging cooperation between the two.
Seven months after his death, in June 1955, the James T. Grady Medal was established to honor his contributions to the communication of chemistry. A C&EN editorial announcing the award proclaimed it “a fitting memorial to a man who did more than any other individual of his time to enable the American public to appreciate the extraordinary advances of modern science.”
Grady’s successor as managing editor was the man who’d joined him in 1945 as assistant managing editor, James H. Stack. Stack studied at Cornell University and New York University before working for over a decade on various weekly and daily newspapers in New York. Like Grady, he worked at the New York Herald Tribune before joining the American Chemical Society.
There is less detail available on Stack’s time as managing editor of the ACS News Service, but it can be assumed he continued Grady’s work, before being selected to head up the newly formed division of Public, Professional and Member Relations in 1960. Under his leadership, the division’s public outreach efforts included the questionably-titled radio series, “Men and Molecules”. Launching in 1961, ten years later the series was being broadcast to all 50 states and Canada, with 600 tapes sent out every week to radio stations and schools.
A primetime radio series focusing on chemistry and reaching millions of weekly listeners sounds priceless today, but at the time, there was concern about the costs of distribution, which increased by a factor of eight in the series’ first decade. In 1971, Stack himself commented that “it’s become too successful.” Regardless, the series continued, under the new title of “Dimensions in Science” by the 1980s.
Stack retired in 1973, but it seems he continued to be a prominent figure in the society. An obituary in C&EN notes that he was “an indispensable source of knowledge for the ACS centennial” in 1976 and played a significant role in the planning and execution of the celebrations. He was still working part-time for the ACS up until a few weeks before he died in 1982. In 1984, his name was added to that of Grady to form the James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award.
Communicating chemistry is, in many ways, very different today compared to back in Grady’s time a century ago. However, I’ll conclude with some of his comments in an address to the National Science Writers’ Association in 1948, shortly after his retirement, which still resonate. He remarked:
“Basic knowledge of the sciences must be the possession of every citizen. Ignorance of the principles, methods, and meaning of science must be driven from every level of American life.”
– James T. Grady
We can, of course, remove “American” to make it more universal. But, given the cuts we’re currently seeing made to science funding, programmes and institutions in America, it’s perhaps best left unaltered. When the political establishment itself champions ignorance and sows misinformation, the role of effective science communication has never been more vital – and the challenge never greater.
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