| 1965 | Martin Karplus | Columbia University |
| 1966 | Ronald Breslow | Columbia University |
| 1967 | Mostafa El Sayed | UCLA |
| 1968 | John Baldeschwieler | Stanford |
| 1969 | Roald Hoffman | Cornell |
| 1970 | Harry Gray | Cal Tech |
| 1971 | Willis Flygare* | University of Illinois |
| 1972 | Charles Cantor | Columbia University |
| 1973 | Nicholas Turro | Columbia University |
| 1974 | Richard Zare | Columbia University |
| 1975 | Robert Vaughn* | Cal Tech |
| 1976 | Joseph B. Lambert | Northwestern University |
| 1977 | William P. Reinhardt | University of Colorado |
| 1978 | Patrick S. Mariano | Texas A & M |
| 1979 | Tobin J. Marks | Northwestern University |
| 1980 | John R. Shapley | University of Illinois |
| 1981 | Richard P. Van Duyne | Northwestern University |
| 1982 | Michael J. Berry | Rice University |
| 1983 | George C. Schatz | Northwestern University |
| 1984 | Mark S.Wrighton | MIT |
| 1985 | Ben Freiser* | Purdue University |
| 1986 | Jacqueline Barton | Columbia University |
| 1987 | Ian Rothwell | Purdue University |
| 1988 | Peter G. Wolynes | University of Illinois |
| 1989 | James L. Skinner | Columbia University |
| 1990 | Nathan S. Lewis | Cal Tech |
| 1991 | Peter G. Schultz | UC Berkeley |
| 1992 | John D. Simon | UC San Diego |
| 1993 | Joseph T. Hupp | Northwestern University |
| 1994 | Scott D. Rychnovsky | University of Minnesota |
| 1995 | Robert M. Waymouth | Stanford |
| 1996 | Erick M. Carreira | Cal Tech |
| 1997 | Christopher C. Cummins | MIT |
| 1998 | Chad A. Mirkin | Northwestern University |
| 1999 | Joseph Simone | UNC Chapel Hill |
| 2000 | David E. Clemmer | Indiana University |
| 2001 | Jillian M. Buriak | Purdue University |
| 2002 | Andrei Tokmakoff | MIT |
| 2003 | Pernilla Wittung-Stafshede | Tulane University |
| 2004 | Jeffrey R. Long | UC Berkeley |
| 2005 | Andrew Lyon | Georgia Tech |
| 2006 | Phil S. Baran | Scripps |
| 2007 | Daniel T. Chiu | University of Washington |
| 2008 | Teri W. Odom | Northwestern University |
| 2009 | Daniel J. Mindiola | Indiana University |
| 2010 | Melanie Sanford | University of Michigan |