Originally from Central Mexico, Professor Joaquín Rodríguez-López grew up in Monterrey, the third-largest city in Mexico, famous for its industrial centers and mountains. He attended Tecnológico de Monterrey, one of the most prestigious institutions in Mexico, widely known for innovation and engineering. Even though Monterrey Tec had a relatively small chemistry program, López said that he was...

An award-winning researcher and pioneer in the synthesis and use of inorganic nanocrystals as probes of biological systems, professor Catherine J. Murphy has also served as Head of the Department of Chemistry at Illinois since June 2020 when she became the first woman to lead the department in its more than 152-year history.   In the lab, Murphy’s research has led to the...

As a research scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Maryland, Tina Huang had the opportunity to mentor college interns and high school students. “I really enjoyed that teaching aspect of explaining things,” Huang said. The experience eventually inspired her to accept a position at Lafayette College in Easton, PA, teaching General Chemistry, Quantitative...

Elizabeth P. Rogers, a former Department of Chemistry faculty member who retired in 1988 after 25 years of teaching general chemistry courses, has died at the age of 100.

Professor Andrzej Wieckowski was born in Łódź, Poland, on February 22, 1945, the son of Andrzej and Halina (Motylewska) Wieckowski. He obtained his M.Sc. (1968), Ph.D. (1972), and D.Sc. (1981) degrees from the University of Warsaw, Poland; his Ph.D. degree was carried out under the direction of Prof. Jerzi Sobkowski. From 1973 until 1983, he held appointments initially as an associate and...

Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, Bill Pirkle grew up on a farm, and built model airplanes to fly them competitively even into later years after he had started his career in science. Bill received his B.S. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1958, and his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester (Marshall Gates) in 1963. After a postdoctoral year with E. J. Corey at Harvard, he joined the...

James R. Eiszner Endowed Chair in chemistry and Professor of Physics and Center for Biophysics and quantitative Biology Professor Gruebele received his BS degree in 1984, and his PhD in 1988 from the University of California at Berkeley. After working as a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology, he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois in 1992. Dr. Gruebele is...

Professor Andrew A. Gewirth received his AB from Princeton University in 1981 and his PhD from Stanford University in 1987. He joined the Illinois faculty in 1988 after postdoctoral work at the University of Texas, Austin. Research in his group focuses on the structure and reactivity of surfaces and interfaces.

Professor Yankwich was internationally recognized for his contributions to three fields of scientific research: the chemical effects of nuclear transformations, the application of radiocarbon tracers to the elucidation of chemical reaction mechanisms, and isotope mass effects on chemical reaction rates. His principal contribution was a long series of experimental and theoretical studies of...

Gregorio Weber's research career, spanning more than half a century, was characterized by an unbroken chain of highly original and important contributions to fluorescence spectroscopy and protein chemistry. As a result of his investigations employing the fluorescence techniques in conjunction with perturbations by pressure and temperature, Weber presented, in the last few years of his life, a...