Richard Smalley
1943 - 2005 (62 years)
Richard Errett Smalley was an American chemist who was the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry, Physics, and Astronomy at Rice University. In 1996, along with Robert Curl, also a professor of chemistry at Rice, and Harold Kroto, a professor at the University of Sussex, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of a new form of carbon, buckminsterfullerene, also known as buckyballs. He was an advocate of nanotechnology and its applications.
Go to ProfileJohn Pople
1925 - 2004 (79 years)
Sir John Anthony Pople was a British theoretical chemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Walter Kohn in 1998 for his development of computational methods in quantum chemistry. Early life and education Pople was born in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, and attended the Bristol Grammar School. He won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1943. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1946. Between 1945 and 1947 he worked at the Bristol Aeroplane Company. He then returned to the University of Cambridge and was awarded his PhD in mathematics in 1951 on lone pair electrons.
Go to ProfileRoald Hoffmann
1937 - Present (86 years)
Hoffman is the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters, Emeritus, at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree at Columbia University in 1958. He earned his Master of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1960. He also received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Hoffman won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1981. Hoffman, a Holocaust survivor, has had an amazing academic and research career in chemistry in the United States. His primary focus has been on the important topic of molecular orbital theory, in particular of polyhedral molecules, which have important applications in a number of areas in physics and chemistry.
Go to ProfileJean-Marie Lehn
1939 - Present (84 years)
Lehn is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Strasbourg’s Institute of Advanced Study (USIAS), as well as Chair of Chemistry of Complex Systems. He is also a member of the Reliance Innovation Council of Reliance Industries Limited, India. Lehn studied philosophy and chemistry at the University of Strasbourg, receiving his undergraduate degree in chemistry, and later his Ph.D. Lehn’s interests are primarily in organic chemistry, where he has explored supramolecular chemistry, or the study of how multiple molecules can lock or combine—in fact, the term “supramolecular” is due to Lehn. ...
Go to ProfileRobert H. Grubbs
1942 - 2021 (79 years)
Grubbs is the Victor and Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He received his bachelor of science in Chemistry at the University of Florida in 1963. He received his master’s degree from Florida in 1965. Grubbs got his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Columbia University in New York City in 1968. Grubbs’s work in chemistry has focused on organometallic chemistry, a relatively new field at the time of his initial research efforts in the late 1960s. He is also a specialist in synthetic chemistry, an exciting field that studies the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds.
Go to ProfileRichard R. Schrock
1945 - Present (78 years)
Richard Royce Schrock is an American chemist and Nobel laureate recognized for his contributions to the olefin metathesis reaction used in organic chemistry. Education Born in Berne, Indiana, Schrock went to Mission Bay High School in San Diego, California. He holds a B.A. from the University of California, Riverside and a Ph. D. from Harvard University under the direction of John A. Osborn .
Go to ProfileMario Molina
1943 - 2020 (77 years)
Mario José Molina-Pasquel Henríquez , known as Mario Molina, was a Mexican chemist. He played a pivotal role in the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, and was a co-recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his role in discovering the threat to the Earth's ozone layer from chlorofluorocarbon gases. He was the first Mexican-born scientist to receive a Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the third Mexican born person to receive the Nobel award.
Go to ProfileJoachim Sauer
1949 - Present (74 years)
Joachim Sauer is a German quantum chemist and professor emeritus of physical and theoretical chemistry at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He is the husband of the former chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel. He is one of the seven members of the board of trustees of the Friede Springer Foundation, together with former German president Horst Köhler and others.
Go to ProfileJames Watson
1928 - Present (95 years)
Areas of Specialization: Molecular Biology, Genetics James D. Watson is a zoologist, geneticist and molecular biologist. He earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of Chicago and a PhD from Indiana University. He is most recently well-known due to his controversial comments about race and genetics, for which he has been largely ostracized. Prior to his unfortunate foray into racial genetics, he was highly regarded and famous for his work on molecular biology. He is credited for significant contributions to our understanding of cancer, neurological diseases and the genetic basis for cancer and other diseases.
Go to ProfileArieh Warshel
1940 - Present (83 years)
Arieh Warshel is an Israeli-American biochemist and biophysicist. He is a pioneer in computational studies on functional properties of biological molecules, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and holds the Dana and David Dornsife Chair in Chemistry at the University of Southern California. He received the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with Michael Levitt and Martin Karplus for "the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems".
Go to ProfileRobert Curl
1933 - 2022 (89 years)
Curl, who passed away July 3, 2022, was the Pitzer-Schlumberger Professor of Natural Sciences Emeritus, and Professor of Chemistry Emeritus at Rice University. Curl received his Bachelor of Science degree from Rice University (then the Rice Institute) in 1954. He got his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1957. Curl won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996 for his groundbreaking work on nanomaterials. Curl’s research, especially his earlier work, focused on the use of microwave spectroscopy to analyze chemical compounds. This work led to his analysis of free radicals, an important area touching on many applications.
Go to ProfileLinus Pauling
1901 - 1994 (93 years)
Linus Carl Pauling was an American chemist, biochemist, chemical engineer, peace activist, author, and educator. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific topics. New Scientist called him one of the 20 greatest scientists of all time, and as of 2000, he was rated the 16th most important scientist in history. For his scientific work, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954. For his peace activism, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. He is one of five people to have won more than one Nobel Prize . Of these, he is the onl...
Go to ProfileGerhard Ertl
1936 - Present (87 years)
Gerhard Ertl is a German physicist and a Professor emeritus at the Department of Physical Chemistry, Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Berlin, Germany. Ertl's research laid the foundation of modern surface chemistry, which has helped explain how fuel cells produce energy without pollution, how catalytic converters clean up car exhausts and even why iron rusts, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
Go to ProfileRichard F. Heck
1931 - 2015 (84 years)
Richard Frederick Heck was an American chemist noted for the discovery and development of the Heck reaction, which uses palladium to catalyze organic chemical reactionss that couple aryl halides with alkenes. The analgesic naproxen is an example of a compound that is prepared industrially using the Heck reaction.
Go to ProfileWalter Kohn
1923 - 2016 (93 years)
Walter Kohn was an Austrian-American theoretical physicist and theoretical chemist. He was awarded, with John Pople, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1998. The award recognized their contributions to the understandings of the electronic properties of materials. In particular, Kohn played the leading role in the development of density functional theory, which made it possible to calculate quantum mechanical electronic structure by equations involving the electronic density . This computational simplification led to more accurate calculations on complex systems as well as many new insights, and ...
Go to ProfileKarl Barry Sharpless
1941 - Present (82 years)
Karl Barry Sharpless is an American chemist and a two-time Nobel laureate in Chemistry known for his work on stereoselective reactions and click chemistry. Sharpless was awarded half of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his work on chirally catalysed oxidation reactions", and one third of the 2022 prize, jointly with Carolyn R. Bertozzi and Morten P. Meldal, "for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry". Sharpless is the fifth person , to have twice been awarded a Nobel prize, along with Marie Curie, John Bardeen, Linus Pauling and Frederick Sanger, and the third t...
Go to ProfileEi-ichi Negishi
1935 - 2021 (86 years)
Negishi is the Herbert C. Brown Distinguished Professor and Director of the Negishi-Brown Institute at Purdue. Negishi received his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Tokyo in 1958. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963. Negishi won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2010, along with Richard F. Heck and Akira Suzuki. Negishi is known for his discovery of the “Negishi coupling,” an important reaction that forms carbon-carbon bonds. The Negishi coupling has important applications for the synthesis of natural products. Negishi coupling has been investigated also for its use in medical applications such as in the treatment of asthma.
Go to ProfileGlenn T. Seaborg
1912 - 1999 (87 years)
Glenn Theodore Seaborg was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work in this area also led to his development of the actinide concept and the arrangement of the actinide series in the periodic table of the elements.
Go to ProfileFrederick Sanger
1918 - 2013 (95 years)
Frederick Sanger was an English biochemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry twice. He won the 1958 Chemistry Prize for determining the amino acid sequence of insulin and numerous other proteins, demonstrating in the process that each had a unique, definite structure; this was a foundational discovery for the central dogma of molecular biology.
Go to ProfileRichard R. Ernst
1933 - 2021 (88 years)
Richard Robert Ernst was a Swiss physical chemist and Nobel Laureate. Ernst was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1991 for his contributions towards the development of Fourier transform nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy while at Varian Associates and ETH Zurich. These underpin applications to both to chemistry with NMR spectroscopy and to medicine with magnetic resonance imaging .
Go to ProfileCarl Djerassi
1923 - 2015 (92 years)
Carl Djerassi was an Austrian-born Bulgarian-American pharmaceutical chemist, novelist, playwright and co-founder of Djerassi Resident Artists Program with Diane Wood Middlebrook. He is best known for his contribution to the development of oral contraceptive pillss, nicknamed the "father of the pill".
Go to ProfileMartin Karplus
1930 - Present (93 years)
Karplus is Theodore William Richards Professor of Chemistry, emeritus at Harvard University. He received his Bachelor of Arts (AB) degree from Harvard University in 1950, and his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1953, working with the famous Nobel laureate Linus Pauling. Karplus is also currently the Director of the Biophysical Chemistry Laboratory, a joint laboratory between the French National Center for Scientific Research and the University of Strasbourg, France. Karplus is a theoretical chemist. His interests include fields in physical chemistry, including chemical and quantum chemistry.
Go to ProfileElias James Corey
1928 - Present (95 years)
“E.J.” Corey is widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest living chemists. He is Emeritus Professor of Organic Chemistry at Harvard University. After matriculating at MIT at the age of 16 to study mathematics and engineering, Corey switched his major to Chemistry, and received his degree in that field at MIT. He then completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry at MIT. Corey is known world-wide for developing several exciting chemical reagents—substances or mixtures of substances used for chemical analysis and reactions—such as the Corey-Suggs reagent, and for completing many “total syntheses,” or the complete chemical synthesis of a complex molecule.
Go to ProfileAhmed Zewail
1946 - 2016 (70 years)
Ahmed Hassan Zewail was an Egyptian-American chemist, known as the "father of femtochemistry". He was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on femtochemistry and became the first Egyptian to win a Nobel Prize in a scientific field, and the second African to win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He was the Linus Pauling Chair Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Physics, and the director of the Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology at the California Institute of Technology.
Go to ProfileManfred Eigen
1927 - 2019 (92 years)
Manfred Eigen was a German biophysical chemist who won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on measuring fast chemical reactions. Eigen's research helped solve major problems in physical chemistry and aided in the understanding of chemical processes that occur in living organisms.
Go to ProfileGeorge Andrew Olah
1927 - 2017 (90 years)
George Andrew Olah was a Hungarian-American chemist. His research involved the generation and reactivity of carbocations via superacids. For this research, Olah was awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1994 "for his contribution to carbocation chemistry." He was also awarded the Priestley Medal, the highest honor granted by the American Chemical Society and F.A. Cotton Medal for Excellence in Chemical Research of the American Chemical Society in 1996.
Go to ProfileMichael Levitt
1947 - Present (76 years)
Levitt is Professor of Structural Biology at Stanford University. He is also known as a biophysicist. Levitt is widely recognized for his research in chemistry, winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2013 (along with colleagues Martin Karplus and Arieh Warshel). He initially studied mathematics and physics, earning his bachelor’s degree in Physics in King’s College London in 1967. He received his Ph.D. in Computational Biology at the University of Cambridge, England. Levitt is known for being one of the first to develop “molecular dynamics” simulations of DNA and proteins using computation.
Go to ProfileDonald J. Cram
1919 - 2001 (82 years)
Donald James Cram was an American chemist who shared the 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Jean-Marie Lehn and Charles J. Pedersen "for their development and use of molecules with structure-specific interactions of high selectivity." They were the founders of the field of host–guest chemistry.
Go to ProfileAllen J. Bard
1933 - Present (90 years)
Allen J. Bard is a chemist and the Hackerman-Welch Regents Chair Professor and director of the Center for Electrochemistry at the University of Texas at Austin. He studied at the City College of New York before earning a Master’s degree and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Bard has spent his entire career at the University of Texas at Austin but has served appointments at Cornell University and as the Robert Burns Woodward visiting professor for Harvard University. Known as the “father of modern electrochemistry”, Bard has made substantial contributions to the field. He developed the scanning e...
Go to ProfileStephanie Kwolek
1923 - 2014 (91 years)
Stephanie Louise Kwolek was a Polish-American chemist who is known for inventing Kevlar. Her career at the DuPont company spanned more than 40 years. She discovered the first of a family of synthetic fibers of exceptional strength and stiffness: poly-paraphenylene terephthalamide.
Go to ProfileKary Mullis
1944 - 2019 (75 years)
Kary Banks Mullis was an American biochemist. In recognition of his role in the invention of the polymerase chain reaction technique, he shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Michael Smith and was awarded the Japan Prize in the same year. PCR became a central technique in biochemistry and molecular biology, described by The New York Times as "highly original and significant, virtually dividing biology into the two epochs of before PCR and after PCR." Mullis attracted controversy for downplaying humans' role in climate change and for expressing doubts that HIV is the sole cause of AID...
Go to ProfileAda Yonath
1939 - Present (84 years)
Areas of Specialization: Crystallography Yonath is Director of the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly of the Weizmann Institute of Science. She received her bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1962, her master’s in biochemistry in 1964, and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1968. Yonath is a crystallographer, a branch of chemistry that studies the arrangement of atoms in crystalline solids. Yonath has applied crystallographic techniques to the study of the ribosome, which has resulted in pioneering research in that area.
Go to ProfileRudolph A. Marcus
1923 - Present (100 years)
Rudolph Arthur Marcus is a Canadian-born chemist who received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his contributions to the theory of electron transfer reactions in chemical systems". Marcus theory, named after him, provides a thermodynamic and kinetic framework for describing one electron outer-sphere electron transfer. He is a professor at Caltech, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science.
Go to ProfileHarry Kroto
1939 - 2016 (77 years)
Sir Harold Walter Kroto , known as Harry Kroto, was an English chemist. He shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley for their discovery of fullerenes. He was the recipient of many other honors and awards.
Go to ProfileBen Feringa
1951 - Present (72 years)
Feringa is Jacobus van ’t Hoff Distinguished Professor of Molecular Sciences at the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry, the University of Groningen, Netherlands. He is also Academy Professor and Chair of Board of the Science Division of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. Feringa shares the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Fraser Stoddart and Jean-Pierre Sauvage for work on molecular machines. Feringa has a master’s in science (MSc) in Chemistry from the University of Groningen in 1974. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Groningen in 1978. Feringa’s work on photochemistry has led to important advances in light-driven molecular motors.
Go to ProfilePeter Atkins
1940 - Present (83 years)
Peter William Atkins is an English chemist and a Fellow of Lincoln College at the University of Oxford. He retired in 2007. He is a prolific writer of popular chemistry textbooks, including Physical Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, and Molecular Quantum Mechanics. Atkins is also the author of a number of popular science books, including Atkins' Molecules, Galileo's Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science and On Being.
Go to ProfileGeorge M. Whitesides
1939 - Present (84 years)
Whitesides is Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor at Harvard University. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree at Harvard College in 1960, and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1964. A prolific researcher, Whitesides earned the highest Hirsch index rating of all living chemists in 2011, an index that attempts to measure the productivity and impact of scholars by analyzing their publications. Whitesides focuses on organic chemistry, and has performed core research using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, a powerful technique for investigating the nuclei of atoms.
Go to ProfileAaron Klug
1926 - 2018 (92 years)
Sir Aaron Klug was a British biophysicist and chemist. He was a winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid-protein complexes.
Go to ProfileDieter Seebach
1937 - Present (86 years)
Dieter Seebach is a German chemist known for his synthesis of biopolymers and dendrimers, and for his contributions to stereochemistry. He was born on 31 October 1937 in Karlsruhe. He studied chemistry at the University of Karlsruhe under the supervision of Rudolf Criegee and at Harvard University with Elias Corey finishing in 1969. After his habilitation he became professor for organic chemistry at the University of Giessen. After six years he was appointed professor at the ETH Zurich where he worked until he retired in 2003.
Go to ProfileF. Albert Cotton
1930 - 2007 (77 years)
Frank Albert Cotton FRS was an American chemist. He was the W.T. Doherty-Welch Foundation Chair and Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Texas A&M University. He authored over 1600 scientific articles. Cotton was recognized for his research on the chemistry of the transition metals.
Go to ProfileSumio Iijima
1939 - Present (84 years)
Sumio Iijima is a University Professor at Meijo University, a physicist and inventor, best known for inventing carbon nanotubes. He earned a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the University of Electro-Communications and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in solid-state physics from Tohoku University. His research and development work has focused on electron microscopy, crystalline and carbon materials, and ultra-fine particles. His discovery of carbon nanotubes occurred in 1991. Carbon nanotubes had been previously observed, but he was the first to understand what they were. In 2017, he was awarded the Inaugural Platinum Medal from Indian Association of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.
Go to ProfileStephen L. Buchwald
1955 - Present (68 years)
Stephen L. Buchwald is a U.S. chemist and Camille Dreyfus Professor of Chemistry at MIT. He is known for his involvement in the development of the Buchwald-Hartwig amination and the discovery of the dialkylbiaryl phosphine ligand family for promoting this reaction and related transformations. He was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and as a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2000 and 2008, respectively.
Go to ProfileThomas Cech
1947 - Present (76 years)
Thomas Robert Cech is an American chemist who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Sidney Altman, for their discovery of the catalytic properties of RNA. Cech discovered that RNA could itself cut strands of RNA, suggesting that life might have started as RNA. He also studied telomeres, and his lab discovered an enzyme, TERT , which is part of the process of restoring telomeres after they are shortened during cell division. As president of Howard Hughes Medical Institute, he promoted science education, and he teaches an undergraduate chemistry course at the University of Colorado.
Go to ProfileHideki Shirakawa
1936 - Present (87 years)
is a Japanese chemist, engineer, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Tsukuba and Zhejiang University. He is best known for his discovery of conductive polymers. He was co-recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Alan MacDiarmid and Alan Heeger.
Go to ProfileFraser Stoddart
1942 - Present (81 years)
Stoddart is Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern University in the United States. He is also Head of the Stoddart Mechanostereochemistry Group in the Department of Chemistry. Stoddart received his bachelor’s degree as well as his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Edinburgh in 1967. Stoddart’s research focuses on supramolecular chemistry and nanotechnology. Nanotechnology has entered popular culture because of its exciting possibilities for the fabrication of products at the molecular level, such as materials or miniature devices. Stoddart has performed core rese...
Go to ProfileC. N. R. Rao
1934 - Present (89 years)
Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao , is an Indian chemist who has worked mainly in solid-state and structural chemistry. He has honorary doctorates from 84 universities from around the world and has authored around 1,774 research publications and 54 books. He is described as a scientist who had won all possible awards in his field except the Nobel Prize.
Go to ProfileCharles J. Pedersen
1904 - 1989 (85 years)
Charles John Pedersen was an American organic chemist best known for describing methods of synthesizing crown ethers during his entire 42-year career as a chemist for DuPont at DuPont Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delaware and at DuPont's Jackson Laboratory in Deepwater, New Jersey. Often associated with Reed McNeil Izatt, Pedersen also shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1987 with Donald J. Cram and Jean-Marie Lehn. He is the only Nobel Prize laureate born in Korea other than Peace Prize laureate Kim Dae-jung.
Go to ProfileWalter Gilbert
1932 - Present (91 years)
Walter Gilbert is an American biochemist, physicist, molecular biology pioneer, and Nobel laureate. Education and early life Walter Gilbert was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 21, 1932, the son of Emma , a child psychologist, and Richard V. Gilbert, an economist.
Go to ProfileJohn D. Roberts
1918 - 2016 (98 years)
John Dombrowski Roberts was an American chemist. He made contributions to the integration of physical chemistry, spectroscopy, and organic chemistry for the understanding of chemical reaction rates. Another characteristic of Roberts' work was the early use of NMR, focusing on the concept of spin coupling.
Go to ProfilePaul J. Crutzen
1933 - 2021 (88 years)
Paul Jozef Crutzen was a Dutch meteorologist and atmospheric chemist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995 for his work on atmospheric chemistry and specifically for his efforts in studying the formation and decomposition of atmospheric ozone. In addition to studying the ozone layer and climate change, he popularized the term Anthropocene to describe a proposed new epoch in the Quaternary period when human actions have a drastic effect on the Earth. He was also amongst the first few scientists to introduce the idea of a nuclear winter to describe the potential climatic effects ...
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