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Amid the steady hum of machines surrounding him in his laboratory at Robert A. Pritzker Science Center, you’ll often find ������̳ Research Professor of Chemistry James Kaduk in solitude, hard at work analyzing new materials.

As a crystallographer, Kaduk is used to spending much of his time on his own. In the field of chemistry, crystallography primarily deals with determining the arrangement and composition of molecules in crystals. By knowing both the arrangement and composition, scientists can better understand a material’s properties and behaviors, which can be used to predict that material’s performance in various scenarios.

“I describe myself as a strange sort of analytical chemist,” says Kaduk. “Crystallography is its own discipline. It doesn’t really get taught anywhere, so you have to do it yourself.”

Kaduk has spent much of his career—which has spanned nearly five decades—determining the structure of crystalline materials, which are primarily used during a technique called X-ray powder diffraction. In addition to his research, Kaduk has taught chemistry courses at ������̳ and North Central College and also served in various research roles at Amoco and BP.

In recognition of his contributions to the field of chemistry, the Council of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) honored Kaduk by . He was selected as part of the 2024 class of AAAS fellows that consisted of 471 scientists, educators, and innovators, and Kaduk was honored, “for achievements in advancing materials analysis using powder diffraction, and for service to the crystallography community through leadership and education,” AAAS said.

“It’s a great honor,” says Kaduk. “To be recognized by a general organization rather than by more specific ones, it means something to get recognized in a larger universe.”

Chemists can better understand the chemical and physical properties of a material they’re working with when they know the arrangement of its atoms. As a crystallographer, Kaduk examines the diffraction pattern X-rays create with the powdered sample. The position and intensity of the peaks and valleys in the pattern provide new information about the material.

So while he has done other work in chemistry, Kaduk realized, while working at Amoco, that he was much more interested in figuring out what he had made than he was in actually making it.

Kaduk also works to maintain and expand a database of all the samples he’s identified over the years at Poly Crystallography—a crystallographic consulting and problem-solving services company he founded in 2009—where he serves as president.

“Poly Crystallography is my one-man consulting company,” says Kaduk. “In a sense, I generate training data for artificial intelligence. I generate new information.”

Tracking these samples is helpful to a wide range of industries including pharmaceuticals and petroleum because it makes quantitative analysis easier and allows for more transparency about what materials are in certain products.

“Remarkably, many pharmaceutical crystal structures are unpublished,” says Kaduk. “The companies keep them as trade secrets, but there’s nothing stopping somebody like me determining the crystal structure, publishing it, and then everybody can use it.”

And his work almost seems to be kismet: Kaduk can trace his roots all the way back to the invention of X-ray powder diffraction.

“My father was a GI Bill chemical engineer in World War II. He worked for General Electric and was a phosphor chemist. My mother was a technician in the X-ray diffraction lab, so that’s how they met. It’s genetic,” jokes Kaduk. “It’s a fun story. Powder diffraction was also invented at General Electric….In a way, I can trace my history all the way back to the very beginning.”