Amazing Grace

He's a successful multimillionaire businessman. He has started several successful companies, some of which are publicly traded.

Dr. Tour holds a Ph.D. in Synthetic Organic and Organometallic Chemistry from Purdue University, Indiana, USA and Postdoctoral training in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin and Stanford University.

He is a Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Computer Science, and Professor of Materials Science and Nano-Engineering with 30 years of experience, first at the University of South Carolina followed by his present position at Rice University, Texas, USA.

Dr. Tour has over 830 research publications (with an H-index > 175) and over 200 patents, with total citations over 145,000.

Dr. Tour was listed in “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” by Thomson Reuters ScienceWatch.com in 2014. (Top 10 chemist in the world over the past decade by Thomson Reuters in 2009). He won the NASA Space Act Award in 2008 for his development of carbon nanotube reinforced elastomers as well as over a dozen prestigious scientific awards over the past decade. He is 3rd most prolific graphene inventor in the world.

Coming to Faith

While faith must be accepted with an element of trust, it is not so different from many scientific tenets that are taken by faith, Tour said. “A lot of science is inference based upon facts,” he said. Tour is truly a student of the Bible. The Scripture God has revealed is precious to him; he has studied it as diligently as he has studied science and molecules.

His typical mornings begin at 3 a.m. “Actually, the first thing I do is I just fall on my knees and I spend 45 minutes in prayer. There are a few things on my prayer list that I pray specifically for every day. I just look through the list and offer those up to the Lord. Jesus says in John chapter 17, ’I glorified You on Earth by accomplishing the work that You have given me to do.’ I say, ’Lord, let me glorify you by accomplishing this day the work that you’ve given me to do.’ And I’ll repeat that each morning. And then I pray. I pray for conversions – that I would see people come to the Lord. I say, ’Lord, don’t let this week go by without a conversion. Let me see somebody brought to Christ.’