John Polanyi

John Charles Polanyi (Hungarian: Polányi János Károly; born 23 January 1929) is a German-born Canadian chemist. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research in chemical kinetics. Polanyi was born into the prominent Hungarian Polányi (Pollacsek) family in Berlin, Germany, prior to his family emigrating in 1933 to the United Kingdom where he was subsequently educated at the University of Manchester, achieving his Ph.D in 1952, and did postdoctoral research at the National Research Council in Canada (1952-1954) and Princeton University in New Jersey (1954-1956). Polanyi's first academic appointment was at the University of Toronto in 1956, and he remains there as of 2025 as Professor Emeritus/Emerita. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Polanyi has received numerous other awards, including 33 honorary degrees, the Wolf Prize in Chemistry and the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering. Outside his scientific pursuits, Polanyi is active in public policy discussion, especially concerning science and nuclear weapons. His father, Mihály (Michael), was a noted chemist and philosopher.