Peter Willett
Encyclopedia
Peter Willett obtained an Honors degree in Chemistry from Exeter College, Oxford
in 1975 and then went to the Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
where he obtained an MSc in Information Studies.
He currently holds a chair in the Information School
at the University of Sheffield
, England
, where he heads a research group studying computational techniques for the processing of chemical and biological information, and has over 480 publications describing this work. Measured in 2008, he had an h-index
of 38.
and cheminformatics
. He was the recipient of the 1993 Skolnik Award of the American Chemical Society, of the 1997 Distinguished Lecturer Award of the New Jersey Chapter of the American Society for Information Science, of the 2001 Tony Kent Strix award
of the Institute of Information Scientists, of the 2002 Lynch Award of the Chemical Structure Association Trust and of the 2005 Award for Computers in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research of the American Chemical Society (ACS) Willett was only the 2nd non-US recipient of the ACS award, which was given "for his diverse contributions to the fields of chemoinformatics and computer-assisted molecular discovery; his novel algorithms and software; and his contributions to the literatures of those fields".
He is included in the UK Who’s Who, is a member of the editorial boards of four international journals, and has been involved in the organization of many national and international conferences in various aspects of information retrieval.
Exeter College, Oxford
Exeter College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England and the fourth oldest college of the University. The main entrance is on the east side of Turl Street...
in 1975 and then went to the Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
University of Sheffield
The University of Sheffield is a research university based in the city of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. It is one of the original 'red brick' universities and is a member of the Russell Group of leading research intensive universities...
where he obtained an MSc in Information Studies.
He currently holds a chair in the Information School
Sheffield Information Studies
The Information School or iSchool of the University of Sheffield, in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, was founded in 1963 as the University's Postgraduate School of Librarianship and became in 2010 the first UK iSchool...
at the University of Sheffield
University of Sheffield
The University of Sheffield is a research university based in the city of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. It is one of the original 'red brick' universities and is a member of the Russell Group of leading research intensive universities...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, where he heads a research group studying computational techniques for the processing of chemical and biological information, and has over 480 publications describing this work. Measured in 2008, he had an h-index
H-index
The h-index is an index that attempts to measure both the productivity and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the set of the scientist's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other publications...
of 38.
Academic contributions
Willett is best known for his contribution to information retrievalInformation retrieval
Information retrieval is the area of study concerned with searching for documents, for information within documents, and for metadata about documents, as well as that of searching structured storage, relational databases, and the World Wide Web...
and cheminformatics
Cheminformatics
Cheminformatics is the use of computer and informational techniques, applied to a range of problems in the field of chemistry. These in silico techniques are used in pharmaceutical companies in the process of drug discovery...
. He was the recipient of the 1993 Skolnik Award of the American Chemical Society, of the 1997 Distinguished Lecturer Award of the New Jersey Chapter of the American Society for Information Science, of the 2001 Tony Kent Strix award
Tony Kent Strix award
The UKeiG Strix award is an annual award for outstanding contributions to the field of information retrieval and is presented in memory of Dr Tony Kent, a past Fellow of the Institute of Information Scientists , who died in 1997...
of the Institute of Information Scientists, of the 2002 Lynch Award of the Chemical Structure Association Trust and of the 2005 Award for Computers in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research of the American Chemical Society (ACS) Willett was only the 2nd non-US recipient of the ACS award, which was given "for his diverse contributions to the fields of chemoinformatics and computer-assisted molecular discovery; his novel algorithms and software; and his contributions to the literatures of those fields".
He is included in the UK Who’s Who, is a member of the editorial boards of four international journals, and has been involved in the organization of many national and international conferences in various aspects of information retrieval.