150th Celebration

Earl Leonard Muetterties

March 20, 2020

Earl Muetterties

By K. N. Raymond, R. A. Andersen, R. G. Bergman, and A. M. Stacy

Earl Muetterties died of cancer on January 12, 1984, at the age of 56. Although he had been at Berkeley for only six years, his contributions to the Berkeley Chemistry Department were important and lasting. His lifetime contributions to the science of chemistry, first as a research worker and later as a teacher, have an...

Donald Sterling Noyce

March 26, 2020

Donald Sterling Noyce

By Yvette Subramanian

Donald S. Noyce, a professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, and former associate dean of undergraduate affairs in the College of Chemistry, died at his home on Nov. 3 at the age of 81. He was a highly regarded teacher and an organic chemist who loved to discern the mechanisms of chemical...

In Memoriam: Alumna Vera Kistiakowsky

October 27, 2022
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release

Vera Kistiakowsky (9 September 1928 – 11 December 2021) was an American research physicist, teacher, and arms control activist. She was professor emerita at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the physics department and Laboratory for Nuclear Science, and was an activist for women's participation in the sciences. Kistiakowsky was an expert in experimental particle physics and observational astrophysics. She was the first woman appointed MIT professor of physics....

The Women Written Out of Nuclear Science

January 10, 2022
by Kit Chapman | Lady Science

Illustration of the Periodic Table

The Periodic Table including the heavy elements. (Adobestock)

Margaret Melhase Fuchs

Margaret Fuchs (née Melhase) as an undergraduate at the University of...

Alumna Miriam Elizabeth Simpson

September 2, 2022
C. Willet Asling and Herbert H. Srebnik | Faculty Senate

Miriam E. Simpson in a lab.

Undated photograph of Miriam Elizabeth Simpson. Photo: Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession 90-105, Science Service Records, Image No. SIA2009-3384

Summary: Miriam Elizabeth Simpson (1894-1991) attended the University of California at Berkeley, earning the A.B. in chemistry in 1915 and the M.A. in 1916....

William L. Jolly

February 11, 2014

William Jolly with Retorts to Lasers

William Lee Jolly (1927-2014), emeritus professor of chemistry at UC Berkeley, (Ph.D. '52, Chem with Latimer) whose work helped facilitate the renaissance of inorganic chemistry in the United States during the middle of the 20th century, died of heart failure on January 10, 2014, at Kaiser Medical Center in Richmond, CA. He was 86....

Willard Frank Libby

January 1, 2020
George B. Kauffman | www.britannica.com

Willard Libby

By George B. Kauffman, Professor of Chemistry, California State University Fresno

Willard Frank Libby (1908 - 1980) American chemist whose technique of carbon-14 (or radiocarbon) dating provided an extremely valuable tool for archaeologists, anthropologists, and earth scientists. For this development he was honored with the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1960.

Libby, the son of farmer Ora Edward...

Glenn Theodore Seaborg

March 29, 2020

Glenn Theodore Seaborg

By Les Prix Nobel edited by Nobel Lectures

Glenn Theodore Seaborg was born in Ishpeming, Michigan, on April 19, 1912. At the age of 10 he moved with his family to California, in 1929 he graduated at David Starr Jordan High School in Los Angeles as...

In Memoriam: Richard Andersen

September 10, 2019
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release
The field of inorganic chemistry has lost one of its most passionate practitioners; Professor Richard Andersen passed away in Oakland, California, on June 16, 2019, at the age of 76.

James Andrew Harris and element discovery at Berkeley Lab

February 1, 2021
by Darryl Boyd | C&EN

Element 104 discovery team

The Berkeley lab team that discovered elements 104 and 105, April 1969. From left: Matti Nurmia, James Harris, Kari Eskola, Pirkko Eskola, and Albert Ghiorso. (Photo: Berkeley Lab)

The discovery of an element is a rare occurrence. Defying racial and academic expectations, James A. Harris played a prominent role in the discovery of two elements.

...