Professor Shakhashiri in Hall of Fame

Professor Shakhashiri was inducted in the Alpha Chi Sigma Hall of Fame on August 5th 2004

Professor Shakhashiri has received a rare honor with his election to the Hall of Fame of the professional chemistry fraternity Alpha Chi Sigma.. Only 30 people have been elected to the Hall of Fame during the fraternity’s 100 years, including seven Nobel laureates. Professor Shakhashiri was honored for innovation in the field of chemistry education. Fraternity President Gary Anderson, a chemistry professor at Marshall University, says the “Science is Fun” presentations were a very large part of the reason for the award.

Also elected to the Hall of Fame this year was the late Willard H. Dow, former president of Dow Chemical Company. The induction ceremony will be August 5th at Virginia Tech.

The previous 28 members of the Hall of Fame in alphabetical order are:

Roger Adams, University of Illinois. Discovered many methods of organic synthesis and served as editor of Organic Reactions for 19 years. Insisted that authors got no royalties. Instead, they went into a fund for the Adams Award in Organic Chemistry, a biennial cash prize for outstanding contributions in organic chemistry. Adams also received the Priestley Medal and the National Medal of Science.

Arnold C. Beckman. Invented the first commercially successful electronic pH meter (1934) and the ultraviolet spectrophotometer (1940). Founded Beckman Instruments (now Beckman Coulter). Beckman also received the National Medal of Science and established the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation which supports Institutes and Centers at five universities.

Herbert C. Brown, Purdue University, received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1979 (shared with Georg Wittig of Heidelberg University), for work on organoboranes, which the Nobel Committee said, “have become the most versatile reagents ever created in organic chemistry”, used in creating a wide range of synthetics from vitamins to plastics and pesticides.

Wallace Hume Carothers. Ph.D., University of Illinois 1924. Inventor of neoprene (1930) and nylon (1934) at DuPont labs.

James Bryant Conant. President of Harvard University, 1933-1953 where he expanded the scope of education, implementing the General Education Program. Chaired the National Defense Research Committee during World War II which oversaw all military scientific research. Served as Ambassador to Germany, 1953-1957.

Elias James Corey, Harvard University, received the Nobel Prize in 1990 for developing the theory and methodology of organic synthesis. Corey coined the term and developed the concept of retrosynthetic analysis, reverse-engineering molecules to find simpler ways to make them.

Frederick Gardner Cottrell. Invented electrostatic processes to remove pollution (lead and acids) from smelter, factory and refinery emissions. In 1912 created the Research Corporation to receive income from his patents and those of other public-spirited inventors. The Corporation helped fund the development of the cyclotron, Robert Goddard’s rocket experiments and large volume production of vitamins. It continues to underwrite scientific research today.

Farrington Daniels. Longtime chair of the chemistry department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where the chemistry building is named for him. For decades Daniels authored or co-authored many editions of the popular textbook now titled Physical Chemistry. In his later years, Daniels promoted solar energy. Daniels served as President of the American Chemical Society and Vice President of the National Academy of Sciences (1957-1961).

Peter J.W. Debye, Berlin University and other European universities, later Cornell University, Nobel laureate in 1936 for increasing knowledge of molecular structure through investigations of the diffraction of X rays and electrons in gasses.

Paul J. Flory, Stanford University, received the Nobel Prize in 1974 for fundamental achievements, both theoretical and experimental, in the physical chemistry of macromolecules which include plastics and many important biological compounds including proteins, nucleic acids and rubber. Discovered Flory’s Universal Constant, which quantitatively summarizes all the properties of polymer solutions. Flory also received the Priestley Medal and the National Medal of Science.

Mary L. Good. Founding Dean of the College of Information Science and Systems Engineering at the University of Arkansas. Good is a former Under Secretary for Technology in the U.S. Department of Commerce and former President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and former President of the American Chemical Society. Good also received the Priestley Medal.

Joel H. Hildebrand. Faculty member at California-Berkeley for 39 years including serving as Dean of Letters and Science. Also a recipient of the Priestley Medal, Hildebrand served as President of the American Chemical Society and the Sierra Club. Hildebrand was a popular teacher whose first love was teaching beginning chemistry with vivid lectures and dramatic demonstrations.

Darleane C. Hoffman. A nuclear chemist who earned her Ph.D. at Iowa State and worked for 31 years at Los Alamos. Her studies of nuclide migration in the environment led to the development of the Yucca Flat Project for storing nuclear waste. Hoffman also received the Priestley Medal and the National Medal of Science.

Charles James. Chair of the chemistry department at New Hampshire College until his death in 1928. A world leader in the chemistry of rare earth metals, James is generally considered the discoverer of Lutetium, though he did not receive full credit because he did not publish his results immediately. James was also noted for researching mostly with the aid of undergraduates who affectionately referred to him as "King James."

Gilbert Newton Lewis. According to the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, Lewis was “the greatest and most influential of American chemists.” His research influenced many fields including thermodynamics and chemical bonding. Served for 34 years as chair of the chemistry department at California-Berkeley until his death in 1946. Lewis defined physical chemistry as, “Everything that is interesting.”

Warren K. Lewis. The father of modern chemical engineering, Lewis served as head of chemical engineering at MIT from 1920. He developed key processes in petroleum refining that are still in use today. An inspiring teacher with a wide range of interests, Lewis chaired a committee which recommended that MIT establish a School of Humanities and Social Sciences. He also received the Priestley Medal.

Carl Shipp Marvel. The father of synthetic polymer chemistry, Marvel spent 41 years at the University of Illinois going from grad school to full professor, then another 26 at the University of Arizona. Marvel served as President of the American Chemical Society. He consulted for nearly 60 years with the DuPont Experimental Stations and helped develop synthetic rubber during World War II.

Thomas Midgley, Jr. An industrial chemist, Midgley joined Charles Kettering’s lab at G.M. in 1916 and developed tetraethyl lead as an anti-knock additive in gasoline engines. His work caused him to get lead poisoning. Later he invented the chloro-fluorocarbon refrigerant Freon. Both inventions are environmental pollutants and were ultimately banned. Midgley also served as President of the American Chemical Society and received the Priestley Medal.

James Flack Norris. Ph.D. Johns Hopkins, 1895, and longtime faculty member at MIT, Norris was one of the first to study the structure-reactivity relationships of organic compounds on a systematic basis. Norris wrote four textbooks on organic chemistry that were the standard college texts through World War II. He also served as President of the American Chemical Society.

Lars Onsager, Yale University, received the Nobel Prize in 1968 for discovering a universal law, Onsager’s Reciprocal Relations, which are fundamental for explaining the thermodynamics of irreversible processes. The Nobel Committee called it, “one of the great advances in science during the 20th century.” Onsager was far ahead of his time, presenting his major paper in 1929, but it wasn’t much noticed until after World War Two.

Donald F. Othmer. A chemical engineer who obtained 150 patents, Othmer was the founding editor of the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, first published more than 50 years ago and still published and widely consulted. Othmer endowed the Othmer Gold Medal awarded by the Chemical Heritage Foundation.

Linus Pauling, California Institute of Technology, Nobel laureate in Chemistry in 1954, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. The Chemistry Prize was for research into the nature of the chemical bond and it’s application to the structure of complex substances. The Nobel Committee said, “It is hardly necessary to question the practical use of the knowledge of the nature of chemical bonds and the structure of substances.” The Peace Prize was for ceaselessly campaigning against the testing and spread of nuclear weapons. Pauling is the person to receive two unshared Nobel Prizes.

John Howard Perry. Ph.D., MIT. Perry improved catalysts for sulfuric acid production. Wrote Perry’s Chemical Engineer’s Handbook, still a definitive reference book, as well as Chemical Business Handbook.

George C. Pimentel. Pimentel’s study of fast reactions led to the development of chemical lasers and high-speed infrared spectrometers. He led the National Science Foundation’s chemistry study project, an effort to improve high school chemistry teaching. His popular textbook, Chemistry: An Experimental Science, was published in 1960. Pimentel also served as President of the American Chemical Society and received the Priestley Medal.

Kenneth S. Pitzer. Pitzer served as Dean of the College of Chemistry at the University of California-Berkeley, and later as President of Rice University and Stanford. He was also Director of the Atomic Energy Commission. A recipient of the Priestley Medal and the National Medal of Science, his research centered on the structure and properties of molecules.

Glenn T. Seaborg, University of California–Berkeley, Nobel Prize recipient in 1951 (shared with Edwin Mattison McMillan) for the co-discovery and creation of transuranium elements Plutonium, Americium and Curium. Later, he participated in the discovery of every new element through number 102. Seaborg worked on the Manhattan Project during World War Two. Later he was Chancellor of California–Berkeley and Chair of the Atomic Energy Commission

.Frank Clifford Whitmore. Whitmore was the first to develop the concept of carbocation and carbocation rearrangements, processes used to create high-octane fuel, plastics, pharmaceuticals and high-temperature lubricants. Whitmore served as Dean of the College of Chemistry and Physics at Pennsylvania State University and as President of the American Chemical Society.

Hobart Hurd Willard. Willard’s analytical chemistry research broke ground into fundamentally new gravimetric and volumetric methods. His introduction to perchlorate chemistry and cerium chemistry are texts that are well known to all analytical chemists.

For more information, see this Alpha Chi Sigma Hall of Fame web site

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