Reaxys has announced the winners of their 2012 Reaxys PhD Prize for innovative and original research in organic, organometallic and inorganic chemistry. 

The 2012 Reaxys PhD Prize Winners are:

- Gregory Hamilton from University of California, Berkeley
- Debashis Mandal from Nagoya University
- Craig Stivala, University of California, Santa Barbara

The winners were selected from 45 finalists by the Chairs of the Review Board: Professors Tony Barrett (Imperial College, UK), Barry Trost (Stanford, USA) and Henry Wong (Chinese University Hong Kong, China). 

Launched in January 2010 the Reaxys PhD Prize has received over 900 submissions from well over 400 of the world's top chemistry institutions. This year a record 350 submissions were received from 39 countries. Submissions consisted of a representative peer-reviewed piece of published research, PhD supervisor's recommendation letter and a CV. Entries were closely scrutinized by a review board of over 80 international chemists from academia and industry. The reviewers judged the entries for originality, innovation, importance to the field, applicability, rigor of approach and publication quality.

The three winners and 42 other finalists have each been invited to attend the Reaxys PhD Prize Symposium at the 244th American Chemical Society Meeting in Philadelphia, on Sunday August 19 2012. The winners are invited to give an oral presentation of their research, and the finalists will participate in a special poster session and reception. The symposium will also feature presentations from Professors Martin Jansen (Max-Planck, Stuttgart, Germany) and Barry Trost (Stanford, USA)

Wong said, "The prize goes from strength to strength. The three winners feel very proud to have been selected from such a strong and diverse field of applicants. I am personally very pleased to see such a diverse set of chemistries represented. This year there were a significant number of inorganic and organometallic submissions in addition to the usual strong organic submissions. I am sure that all of these young chemists have extremely bright futures ahead of them."