Dr. William C. Deese, the T.W. Ray Johnson Professor of Chemistry at Louisiana Tech University, has received the prestigious Helen M. Free Award for Public Outreach from the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Committee on Public Relations and Communications. The award, established in 1995, recognizes outstanding achievements in the field of public outreach by a member of the ACS who improves public recognition and appreciation for the contributions of chemistry.  Free is a former president of the American Chemical Society and the inventor of the home diabetes test. Deese began his career at Louisiana Tech in the fall of 1981 and became involved with public outreach in 1985.  Since 1989, he has directed over 20 externally-funded professional development programs for science teachers and has presented dozens of demonstration programs throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico. Deese is also a nationally-sought after consultant by public science museums including the IDEA Place in Ruston, Sci-Port in Shreveport and the Orlando Science Center in Florida. In addition to speaking at conferences around the country, Deese was the featured speaker at last year’s National Science Teachers Association National Meeting in New Orleans.  His presentation titled, “The Dead Chemists’ Society Presents: It’s a Gas, Gas, Gas!” told the story of the discovery of several gases and many of their properties, and addressed the history and nature of science with biographical sketches and connections between the nano-scale world and observable world via performance art. Other National Science Teachers Association featured speakers include television personality Bill Nye “The Science Guy” and astrophysicist and NOVA scienceNow host Neil deGrase Tyson. Louisiana Tech’s College of Engineering and Science is a nationally recognized leader in educational innovation and is one of fourteen universities nation-wide to become affiliated with the Center for Advancement on Scholarship in Engineering Education (CASEE), a unit of the National Academy of Engineering. Written by Catherine Fraser – cfraser@latech.edu