Slavi C. Sevov, assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Notre Dame, received the 1999 ExxonMobil Faculty Fellowship in Solid-State Chemistry at the recent ACS national meeting in San Francisco. The award, administered by the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry and made possible by a grant from ExxonMobil Research & Engineering, recognizes significant contributions in solid-state chemistry by junior faculty at U.S. institutions.

Sevov received B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Sofia, Bulgaria, and a Ph.D. degree from Iowa State University. After a postdoctoral appointment at the University of Chicago, he joined the chemistry faculty at Notre Dame as an assistant professor in 1995. Sevov's research group has explored numerous topics, spanning from main-group clusters in the solid state and in solution to transition-metal borophosphates, phosphates, and phosphonates with open-framework structures. These research efforts have led to the discovery of the first isolated deltahedral clusters of group 14 in intermetallic Zintl (valence) compounds, including the first structurally characterized cluster of silicon. Sevov's interest in the chemistry of the negative oxidation states of the heavier post-transition elements covers also synthesis of homo- and heteroatomic Zintl ions in solution and the reactions between those species, and synthesis of frameworks of interconnected deltahedral clusters and intermetallic zeolite-like structures such as silicon and germanium clathrates. Recent results from his group include the naked molecule [Bi=Bi]^2- with a double bond, the dimer [Ge₉-Ge₉]^6- of connected deltahedral clusters, and a microporous diaminocyclohexane-templated zinc phosphate with extra-large pores made of 24 tetrahedra.

Sevov's colleagues characterize his efforts as having diversity and breadth and his synthetic strategies as elegant.