Spotlights

  • C. S. Marvel was born in Waynesville, Illinois on September 2, 1894. Marvel was first introduced to chemistry while a freshman at Illinois Wesleyan on the recommendation that "the next generation of farmers was going to need scientific knowledge to get the most out of their work". After receiving...
  • Howard Vincent Malmstadt, faculty of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois from 1951 to 1981, was widely considered the father of modern electronic and computerized instrumentation in chemistry. Malmstadt was born in Marinette, Wisconsin, on February 17, 1922. He received his...
  • Nelson J. Leonard, one of the most important chemists of the twentieth century, was not only a master in the application of organic synthesis to the solution of important problems in chemistry, biochemistry, and plant physiology, but very highly regarded as a professional colleague. Leonard was...
  • Paul C. Lauterbur, a pioneer in the development of magnetic resonance imaging and a faculty member at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He shares the prize with Sir Peter Mansfield of the University of Nottingham in...
  • Dr. Gilbert P. Haight Jr., best known for his pioneering work in chemical education, died on Monday, April 17, 2015 of natural causes. Known to family and friends as "Gil", Dr. Haight spent his professional life as a professor of chemistry, exploring and perfecting the delivery of scientific...
  • Herbert Sander Gutowsky's pioneering work made nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy one of the most effective tools in chemical and medical research. Born November 8, 1919, on a produce farm in Bridgman, Michigan, Gutowsky was the son of Otto and Hattie Meyer Gutowsky. He claimed that his...
  • David Y. Gin was born on May 16, 1967 and raised in Ashcroft, British Columbia. He received his BSc in Chemistry at the University of British Columbia in 1989, where he performed summer undergraduate research under the direction of Professor Tom Money. In 1989, he began his graduate studies in...
  • University of Illinois colleagues remember Bill Flygare as "one of the most creative and dynamic physical chemists in the world." Shortly before his death in 1981, Professor Flygare was awarded the Irving Langmuir Prize in Chemical Physics and was cited for: "outstanding contributions to the...
  • University of Illinois, 1927-1963. Autobiographical Notes, September 6, 1966
  • Harry Drickamer Symposium, March 15, 2004. University of Illinois professor emeritus Harry G. Drickamer died Monday May 6, 2002 after suffering a serious stroke. Drickamer held appointments in the departments of chemistry, chemical engineering, and physics.
  • In 1916, St. Elmo Brady became the first African American in the United States to obtain a PhD in Chemistry at the University of Illinois, where he conducted research in Noyes Laboratory. Born on Dec. 22, 1884, in Louisville, Kentucky, Brady graduated from Louisville Colored High School in 1903...
  • Rue Linn Belford was born in St. Louis, Missouri on December 13, 1931 to the late Rue L. Belford and Fannie Belford (neé Kelley). His family moved numerous times throughout the Depression as his father sought work: Bayview, Texas; Cleveland, Ohio; and one year in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, where...
  • Professor Virginia Bartow taught chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for 37 years and played an important role at the national level in the American Chemical Society and the women’s honor society Iota Sigma Pi.  Bartow was the first woman faculty member in chemistry at...
  • John Christian Bailar, Jr. was born in Golden, Colorado in 1904 and received his degrees in chemistry from Colorado and Michigan. He became an instructor at the University of Illinois in 1928 and began a sixty-three year career in Illinois - Department of Chemistry. He became associate professor in...
  • Lou Audrieth was born in Vienna, Austria, and became an American citizen in 1912. He was educated at Colgate and Cornell, taking a PhD from the latter in 1926 and remaining there as a fellow for two years. He worked with A. W. Browne during both his doctoral and post-doctoral studies. It was during...
  • Prof. Applequist was born October 29, 1930, in Salt Lake City, Utah, son of Einar Isidor and Margaret McCune (Musser) Applequist. As a child he moved with his parents and his two brothers Jon and Reid to Berkeley, California, where his father was employed as a linotype operator for the university...
  • Roger Adams arrived at the University of Illinois in 1916 and enjoyed an illustrious long association with the Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. Beginning as an Assistant Professor, his career at Illinois spanned fifty-six years, until his death in 1971. "The Chief" served as...