An ISU professor will travel to France in October to receive an honorary Ph.D. from the Institute National Polytechnique de Lorraine.

Patricia Thiel, distinguished professor of chemistry, is scheduled to travel to Nancy, France on Oct. 3 to receive the “Doctor Honoris Causa.” Honoris Causa means “for the sake of honor” in Latin.

“It is a great honor to receive the degree,” Thiel said.

A university may give out the Doctor Honoris Causa to recognize and distinguish an outstanding person who contributed exceptionally to their field of expertise, higher education or a specific institution and to both honor the recipient and the institution. It is a university-wide degree and not associated with a particular discipline.

Gordon Miller, professor of chemistry, said the decision to bestow the degree had to be agreed on by all faculty at the French university and called it a “tremendous honor.”

Thiel spent three summers — 1999 to 2001 — at the Institute National Polytechnique de Lorraine as a visiting scientist. During her time there, she studied surface quasi crystals.

Thiel said her time spent at the university may have contributed to why she was honored. The honorary degree is a way for the university to be associated with you without actually hiring you, she said.

Thiel said she is not sure what steps are involved with receiving an honorary degree in France, but thinks it is similar to what it would be like in the United States. To receive an honorary degree at Iowa State, one must be nominated by faculty and be approved by a high level of administration, often the president of a university.

Thiel specializes in chemistry and physics of surfaces, which involves studying how chemical reactions on different surfaces react. She has been at Iowa State since 1983 and is the leader of the Thiel research group, which studies and tries to understand physical processes by studying chemistry on an atomic scale.