The 2022 European Chemistry Gold Medal has been awarded to Professor Dame Carol Robinson for exceptional achievements in the field of chemistry in Europe. 

Professor Dame Carol Robinson is a British chemist and former President of the Royal Society of Chemistry. She is currently the Director of the Kavli Institute for NanoScience Discovery as well as a Professorial Fellow at Exeter College and holds the Chair of Dr Lee’s Professor of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Oxford. She is noted as the first female Professor in both the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford and prior to that at the University of Cambridge. 

Professor Robinson’s long and distinguished career has been marked by outstanding contributions across the fields of physical, medicinal, and biochemistry; an exemplary publication record, and numerous international honours and awards for her research all whilst promoting the role of women in science.  

Professor Robinson is globally recognised as a leader in the development of mass spectrometry to understand the 3D structure of large molecular compounds, specifically carrying out ground-breaking research on protein folding, ribosomes, molecular chaperones, and membrane proteins. Her cutting-edge work finds many applications from antibiotic resistance to drug design in both academia and industry. In addition to her academic role, she founded a successful biotechnology company, now in its fourth year, which focuses on mass spectrometry to discover novel medicines.