It is with great pleasure that the Editors of the Journal of Polymer Science Part A: Polymer Chemistry congratulate our fellow editor, Professor Craig Jon Hawker, of the University of California at Santa Barbara, on being awarded the 2005 ACS Award in Applied Polymer Science sponsored by Eastman Chemical Company. The award was established in 1968 to recognize and encourage outstanding achievements in the science or technology of plastics, coatings, polymer composites, adhesives, and related fields. Past recipients of the award include several of our Editorial Board members. Many of you may recognize Craig's work during his tenure at IBM Almaden Research Center as having led to dramatic advances in applied polymer science and also to significant fundamental advances in several areas of basic polymer science. Over the years that he spent at IBM and prior, while at the University of Queensland (as a Queen Elizabeth II Fellow) and at Cornell University (as a postdoctoral research associate with Professor Jean M. J. Fréchet), he pioneered developments in living radical polymerization, surface initiated living polymerizations, and control over macromolecular topology and their applications in a number of commercially important fields. As a quantitative measure of his impact, he was named as one of the top 100 most cited chemists worldwide from 1993–2003. During this time he published over 180 papers, 26 patents, and was recognized by IBM with 10 separate patent awards. There are numerous examples of Craig's developments to applied polymer science, each of which illustrates his combination of remarkable science and technology. His work on insulating materials for microelectronics packaging with the IBM group including Bob Miller, Jim Hedrick, and Willi Volksen resulted in the development of nanoporous ultra-low dielectric constant films, the accepted technology for state-of-the-art microelectronic fabrication. He applied the design of materials with tailor-made crosslinks for utilization as reworkable encapsulents and thin films for a variety of applications in nanotechnology. These applications include new AFM probe devices for data storage; for example the novel “Millipede” compact storage systems (named one of Industry Week's 2003 Technologies of the Year). Moreover, his work on self-assembling block copolymer templates, with Thomas P. Russell (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), is revolutionary and has resulted in a new manufacturing technique for flash memory devices that was recently announced by IBM. Craig has a highly visible reputation nationally and internationally for his quality of research, his dedication to science, and his leadership and mentoring roles in the scientific community. As Editors, we are honored to have his presence and contributions to the Journal of Polymer Science Part A: Polymer Chemistry. You can congratulate Craig personally by attending the award symposium in his honor, which is to be held on Monday, March 14, 2005 as part of the Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering programming at the 229th ACS National Meeting in San Diego, CA. Craig, congratulations indeed!