150th Celebration

Celebrating George Pimentel on his 100th birthday

April 9, 2022
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release

Kenneth Herr and George Pimentel

Image: (l to r) Kenneth Herr and George Pimentel discuss production of the infrared spectrometer that was placed on the Mars Mariner 6 and 7 spacecraft that went to Mars in 1969 and discovered that there was water on the planet. (Photo: College of Chemistry)...

David Lyon, UC chemistry professor, dies at 89

August 20, 2022
Steve Rubenstein | Chronicle Staff Writer | SF GATE

Dorothy Lyons, David Lyons, Clayton Heathcock

Professors David Lyon and Clayton Heathcock with David's wife Dorothy in an undated photograph at a College of Chemistry event. (photograph Michael Barnes)

Professor David Lyon died Dec. 10, 2008 in a Santa Rosa senior citizen home at the age of 89.

David Lyon, a...

UC Berkeley Chemists and the Periodic Table

January 9, 2019
by Marge d'Wylde | College of Chemistry

Seaborg, Ghiorso and other 104 discovery colleagues.

Photo: The Rutherfordium (element 104) discovery team in 1969: (l to r) Matti Nurmia, Jim Harris, Kari Eskola, Glen Seaborg, Pirkko Eskola and Albert Ghiorso.

Dimitri Mendeleev, a Russian chemist who in 1869 wrote out the known...

Rollie John Myers

March 11, 2020
By David E. Wemmer

Rollie Myers

Professor Rollie John Myers Jr. was born on July 15, 1924, in Hastings, Nebraska, where his father was also born, and passed away on September 12, 2016, at age 92. His family prospered in Nebraska, thanks to automobiles requiring parts and the development of radio. In 1932 his father...

Stanley G. Thompson- a Chemist's Chemist

February 14, 2022
by Glenn T. Seaborg

Thompson and associates.

The UCLA Gang, Chicago, July 1944. Left to right: Leonard Katzin, Zene Jasaitis, Nathalie and Harlan Baumbach, Glenn Seaborg, Stanley Thompson, Leonard Dreher, Fred Albaugh

In looking back at the discovery of transuranium elements the name Stanley G. Thompson stands out. When he died (July 16,...

http://www.bonestamp.com/sgt/A_Chemists_Chemist/Chemist_Chemist.htm

Robert George Bergman

March 20, 2020

Professor Bergman standing in front of a chalkboard.

Robert G. Bergman was born in Chicago, Illinois, on May 23, 1942. After completing his undergraduate studies in chemistry at Carleton College in 1963, he received his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin in 1966 under the direction of Jerome A...

Charles Bonner Harris

March 20, 2020
By Jennifer Shanoski (Ph.D. '06, Chem)

Professor Harris in his office

Charles Bonner Harris was born in New York on April 24, 1940, the first child of Charles J. and Brenda Bonner Harris. Six months later, the family moved to Oak Park, Illinois, where his sister, Sally, was born. When Charles was 4 years old...

Henry Frederick Schaefer, III

March 27, 2020
By T. Daniel Crawford

Henry Frederick Schaefer III

Henry Frederick ‘Fritz’ Schaefer III was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on 8 June 1944, one of three children of Henry F. Schaefer, Jr and Janice Christine Trost. Fritz's parents were both graduates of the University of Michigan — his mother a...

Neil Bartlett

March 20, 2020

Neil Bartlett

By Michael Barnes

Neil Bartlett, a renowned emeritus professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, whose groundbreaking experiments challenged the prevailing views of the nature of noble gases, died unexpectedly on...

In Memoriam: Professor Michael Charles Williams

January 5, 2021
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release

Man in a shirt and tie

Michael Charles Williams, undated photograph taken at UC Berkeley. (Photo courtesy College of Chemistry)

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Michael Charles Williams, a longtime member of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE) faculty in the College of Chemistry on January 2,...