Sir Harold Kroto is a Franics Eppes Professor of Chemistry at Florida State University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. His research is focused on the area of nanoscience and cluster chemistry, as well as the development of exciting Internet approaches to educational activities in science and technology. He is the initiator of the Global Educational Outreach for Science, Engineering and Technology program (GEOSET), with the goal of improving the general level of science teaching worldwide. In 1970, his research group conducted laboratory and radio astronomy studies of long linear carbon chain molecules, thereby confirming that they exist in interstellar space. In 1985, he was part of a team that carried out laboratory experiments that simulated the chemical reactions in the atmosphere of red giant stars. These experiments uncovered the existence of C60 Buckminsterfullerene, a new form of carbon. For this discovery, Sir Harold Kroto, together with Richard Smalley and Robert Curl, received the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Sir Harold Kroto is a recipient of the Copley Medal and Faraday Lectureship of the Royal Society and the Longstaff Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He holds some 30 honorary degrees from universities all over the world. Since 2004, he has been on the Board of Scientific Governors at the Scripps Institute. In 2007, he was elected a Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.