Sir James Fraser Stoddart, FRS FRSE HonFRSC[1] (24 May 1942 – 30 December 2024) was a British-American chemist who was Chair Professor in Chemistry at the University of Hong Kong.

[19] He was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry in 1964 followed by a Doctor of Philosophy in 1966[24] for research on natural gums in Acacias supervised by Sir Edmund Langley Hirst and D M W Anderson[3] from the University of Edinburgh.

In 1970 he moved to the University of Sheffield as an Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) Research Fellow, before joining the academic staff as a lecturer in chemistry.

In early 1978 he was a Science Research Council Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Later in 1978, he was transferred to the ICI Corporate Laboratory in Runcorn, England where he first started investigating the mechanically interlocked molecules that would eventually become molecular machines.

[35][2] One of his major contributions to the development of mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures such as rotaxanes and catenanes was the establishment of efficient synthetic protocols based on the binding of cyclobis(paraquat-p-phenylene) with electron-rich aromatic guests.

[40]Stoddart's papers and other material are instantly recognizable due to a distinctive "cartoon"-style of representation he developed beginning in the late 1980s.

The distinctive colouring has led to coining the term 'little blue box' for the cyclophane cyclobis(paraquat-p-phenylene); an important π-acceptor used to synthesize mechanically bonded structures.

[26] Stoddart maintains this standardized colour scheme across all of his publications and presentations, and his style has been adopted by other researchers reporting mechanically interlocked molecules based on his syntheses.

[5] Norma Stoddart obtained a PhD in biochemistry and helped support the research efforts of her husband at the Universities of Sheffield, Birmingham, and California, Los Angeles.

[54] Stoddart was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the New Year's Honours December 2006, by Queen Elizabeth II for Services to Chemistry and Molecular Nanotechnology.

[56] In 2016, he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Ben Feringa and Jean-Pierre Sauvage for the design and synthesis of molecular machines.