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Faculty Spotlights

  • 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 BS degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1943, carrying out undergraduate research in...
  • 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 born on September 1, 1916, grew up in Bronxville, New York, and attended Lehigh University in...
  • 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 England. Mansfield was a research associate in the department of physics at Illinois from 1962-1964.
  • 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 education to college students in a career that spanned the globe. Born in Seattle on June 8, 1922,...
  • 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 childhood experiences taught him the importance of hard work, which carried over to his scientific life....
  • 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 synthetic organic chemistry at the California Institute of Technology under the direction of Professor...
  • 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 understanding of molecular electronic structure and molecular dynamics through the introduction of high...
  • 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.
  • 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 in that short period of time he met his future wife, Geneva Grosz. Linn obtained his bachelor’s...