Bergman Selected 2008 Richards Medalist

Robert G. Bergman

January 16, 2008 (courtesy of ACS )

Chemistry professor Robert G. Bergman has been selected to receive the 2008 Richards Medal by the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS). The Richards Medal is awarded every two years for conspicuous achievement in chemistry. It is the section’s oldest and most prestigious award, honoring the first U.S. Nobel laureate in Chemistry.

Robert Bergman is the Gerald E. K. Branch Distinguished Professor at UC Berkeley and a member of the Chemical Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He spent the first part of his career investigating the mechanisms of organic reactions and the generation and study of unusually reactive molecules. In the mid-1970's his research broadened to include organometallic chemistry. He has made contributions to the synthesis and chemistry of several types of organotransition metal complexes and to improving our understanding of the mechanisms of their reactions. Most recently he has been involved in the application of C-H activation reactions to problems in organic synthesis. He has previously received the ACS Award in Organometallic Chemistry (1986), an ACS Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award (1987), the ACS Arthur C. Cope Award (1996), and the ACS James Flack Norris Award in Physical Organic Chemistry (2003).

He has been honored with numerous other awards and is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (both in 1984). In 2007 he was chosen by the National Academy of Sciences to receive the NAS Award in Chemical Sciences.

After completing his undergraduate studies in chemistry at Carleton College in 1963, he received his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin in 1966. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University, he joined the faculty of the California Institute of Technology, rising through the professorial ranks before moving his research group to UC Berkeley in 1978.

Prof. Bergman will be honored at an award dinner and medal presentation in conjunction with the NESACS meeting scheduled for March 13, 2008 at Harvard University. He will present an award address titled “Selective Organic and Organometallic Transformations Mediated by Molecular and Supramolecular Environments.”

More Information

Dept of Chemistry Faculty Page
The Bergman Research Group