150th Chemistry

Peter Armentrout

March 26, 2020

Peter Armentrout

Professor Armentrout (at the College of Chemistry from 1981 to 1986 before moving to University of Utah) was born in Dayton, Ohio on March 13, 1953. He received a B.S. degree with highest honors in 1975 from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. While at Case, Prof. Armentrout conducted research with Prof. Rob Dunbar on photodissociation...

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.

Walter Charles Blasdale

March 25, 2020

Group of people posing in front of a building

Chemistry faculty and staff stand in front of Gilman Hall, 1917. Walter Blasdale is in the front row, second from right.

By W. F. Giauque, J. H. Hildebrand, V. F. Lenzen

...

William Crowell Bray

March 30, 2020
William Crowell Bray

By G. E. K. Branch, A. R. Davis, and J. H. Hildebrand

William Crowell Bray, Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, died February 24, 1946, after he had apparently been recuperating from an illness of several months.

A...

Leo Brewer

March 4, 2020
By Rollie J. Myers, Gerd M. Rosenblatt, and Herbert L. Strauss

Professor Brewer standing next to chalkboard

Leo Brewer died on February 22, 2005 after several years of declining health. He was a chemist’s chemist always ready to help out fellow chemists, physicists, and materials scientists with his vast chemical knowledge. He is considered to be the founder of modern high-temperature chemistry.

Brewer was born June 13, 1919 in St...

Ignacio Tinoco Jr.

March 25, 2020

Ignacio Jr. Tinoco

By Kerry Grens

Ignacio (Nacho) Tinoco, a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley, who pioneered methods to understand the structures of RNA, died last month (November 15). He was 85....

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.

Richard Edward Powell

March 11, 2020
By George Jura, R. E. Connick, A. E. Hutson, and G. A. Somorjai

Richard Edward Powell

Shortly after the death of Professor Richard Powell, his brother wrote a letter to the department, as follows: “Dick said that the two happiest days of his...

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,...

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