"Congratulations to our promoted faculty. Through your endeavors and discoveries, the University's reputation for excellence continues to be elevated both locally and globally," stated Chameau. "Your achievements as well as the caliber of talent in our academic community continue to shape KAUST as a destination for passion, curiosity, innovation and impact."

KAUST Professor Nikos Hadjichristidis contributed to the design and synthesis of an unprecedented collection of flaw-free, narrowly distributed macromolecular architectures and well-defined mesostructures by pioneering original synthetic methods. These polymers can help scientists carrying out research on other disciplines, including membranes, solar and fuel cells and biomaterials. At KAUST, he is working with non-metal (green or environmental friendly) anionic polymerization and using phosphazene bases for the fast and controlled polymerization of a wide range of monomers. He is also developing novel strategies for preparing well-defined polyethylene-based copolymers (catalytic living polymerization).

Hadjichristidis was awarded the 2016 Macro Group U.K. Medal for Continued Outstanding Achievement in Polymer Science and the 2015 American Chemical Society National Award for Polymer Chemistry (sponsored by ExxonMobil Chemical Company). He also received the International Award of the Society of Polymer Science from Japan in 2007. He is the founding member and past president of the European Polymer Federation. He has also published more than 400 peer-reviewed manuscripts and has 19 patents to his credit.