150th Celebration

Berkeley Chemistry: 1868 to the Present

Chemistry has been part of Berkeley since the University's charter was signed on March 23,1868. The chemist Robert Fisher was one of the first ten faculty to be hired.

William Garfield Dauben

March 3, 2020
By Paul A. Bartlett, Rollie Myers, and Andrew Streitwieser

Professor Dauben seated in his office, holding papers.

William Dauben(link is external) died in his sleep during the night of January 1, 1997. His death was sudden and unexpected. He was born on November 6, 1919, the youngest of three sons of Hyp J. and...

Edmond O'Neill

March 17, 2020
by C. W. Porter | Industrial and Engineering Chemistry

Edmond O'Neil

After forty-five years of service in the department of chemistry of the University of California, Edmond O’Neill retired with a Carnegie pension on June 30, 1925. He was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1858, but the San Francisco Bay region has been his home since 1864. He was graduated from the University of California in 1879 and was appointed instructor in chemistry the same year. His graduate...

Samuel Benedict Christy, first dean of mining and metallurgy

September 15, 2021

Hearst Mining Building, UC Berkeley

Interior, Hearst Mining Building. (Photo: Joe Parks via Wikimedia Commons(link is external))

...

Paul Allan Bartlett

March 26, 2020

Paul A. BartlettEmeritus Professor Paul A. BARTLETT(link is external) grew up in New England, did his schooling in the Boston area, and graduated with an A.B. (Phi Beta Kappa) and an A.M. in Chemistry from Harvard University in 1969. As an undergraduate, he did research with David Dolphin on the synthesis of the alkaloid...

Robert Andrews Fisher

May 2, 2023
Journal of the Franklin Institute, 1894

Robert Fisher

Robert Andrews Fisher (1832-1893) was in the early fifties, the assistant to Prof. John A. Porter, of Yale College, and at one time was Professor of Chemistry at Brown University, which conferred upon him an honorary degree. In those days, no facilities were offered in this country to chemists who were desirous of pursuing advanced courses in their science. He accordingly went to...

C. Judson King of Berkeley

February 27, 2022
John Prausnitz | College of Chemistry

This article was first published in Chemical Engineering Education(link is external), Vol. 39 No. 3, Summer 2005 (p178-182); © 2005 American Society for Engineering Education. It is reprinted here by permission of the publisher.

C. Judson King

In the middle of the UC Berkeley campus, next to the Main Library, South Hall is the...

Happy 100th Birthday Gilman Hall

sketch of building

image: 1909 conceptual sketch of Gilman Hall by John Galen Howard, campus supervising architect, 1901-1922

Berkeley 150 logoAs we celebrate the campus sesquicentennial, Gilman Hall will officially turn 100 on March 22...

Henry Chalmers Biddle

March 3, 2020
Henry C. Biddle was appointed to the chemistry department at Berkeley in 1901. He did research in biochemistry and taught organic chemistry.

Alum Kaoru "Kay" Inouye's internment and military story

July 13, 2021
Kaoru Inouye | discovernikki.org

Kaoru Inouye teaches chemistry at Heart Mountain, World War II

Scene in the Chemistry class at the Heart Mountain High School, as Kaoru Inouye, instructor, is showing student Sumi Tam[...] a step in one of the Chemistry experiments. Photographer: Iwasaki, Hikaru; Heart Mountain, Wyoming. War Relocation Authority...