Sheldon Shore was born in Chicago in 1930. After completing his Bachelor's degree at the University of Illinois in 1951, he moved to the University of Michigan where he completed his Master's (1953) and Doctorate degrees (1957). Shortly thereafter, he moved to join the Chemistry faculty at The Ohio State University. Thus, the year 2007 represents a half century of distinguished service at Ohio State.

Professor Shore’s research has spanned vast areas of the periodic table, but perhaps he is best known for his pioneering work in the area of boron hydrides, metal cluster carbonyls and lanthanide transition metal systems. He and his coworkers developed the first rational synthesis of B4-B10 boron hydrides and one of his early compounds ammonia borane, which had been predicted to be to be too unstable to isolate, was isolated by him and shown to be stable at elevated temperatures. It is currently a hot topic for hydrogen storage and release. He produced the first well-defined examples of boron nitride nanotubes, analogs of multi-walled carbon nanotubes. His mechanistic studies of the synthesis of metal cluster carbonylates and the water-gas shift reaction attracted wide attention. This work has been featured in current treatises on cluster chemistry and is also described in inorganic chemistry text books. His work on mixed metal clusters of lanthanide-transition metal elements and their conversion to nanoparticles has led to new heterogeneous catalysts for the selective hydrogenation of phenol to cyclohexanone; hydrodechloronation of chlorobenzenes and the reforming of propane.

Dr. Shore is the author of over 297 scientific publications and 14 patents. He has received numerous awards and recognitions for his research. Most notable among them is the Chemical Society’s Columbus Section Award, the Morley Medal of the Cleveland Section, the ACS Award for Inorganic Chemistry and election as a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. The Ohio State University has also recognized him with the Distinguished Lecturer Award, the Distinguished Scholar Award, the Charles H. Kimberly Chair of Chemistry, and the Distinguished Professor of Mathematical and Physical Sciences Award. Dr. Shore received the ACS Award for Inorganic Chemistry in 2008. During Dr. Shore’s tenure at OSU, 91 students have completed MS or Ph.D. degrees with him and postdoctoral fellows and visiting scholars have been associated with his laboratory. Moreover, this encompasses just the first half century of his career at Ohio State.

Robert Howard Grubbs is an American chemist and Nobel laureate.Grubbs studied chemistry at the University of Florida (B.S. and M.S.), where he worked with Merle Battiste, and Columbia University, where he obtained his Ph.D. under Ronald Breslow in 1968.

He next spent a year with James Collman at Stanford University. He was then appointed to the faculty of Michigan State University. In 1978 he moved to California Institute of Technology where he is presently Victor and Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry.

His main interests in organometallic chemistry and synthetic chemistry are catalysts, notably Grubbs' catalyst for olefin metathesis and ring-opening metathesis polymerization with cyclic olefins such as norbornene. He also contributed to the development of so-called "living polymerization".

Grubbs's many awards have included: Alfred P. Sloan Fellow (1974–76), Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (1975–78), Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (1975), ACS Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry (2000), ACS Herman F. Mark Polymer Chemistry Award (2000), ACS Herbert C. Brown Award for Creative Research in Synthetic Methods (2001), the Tolman Medal (2002), and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2005). He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1989 and a fellowship in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994.

Grubbs received the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, along with Richard R. Schrock and Yves Chauvin, for his work in the field of olefin metathesis.

He is also a member of the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Advisory Board.