Pictured is Brian with his student host Yukihiro Hiraiwa of the Yamamoto Group.

Award Description

Prof. Gerhard Closs was born in Wuppertal, Germany in 1928. He received his Ph.D. degree at Tubingen University with Prof. George Wittig and did post-doctoral work in the laboratory of Prof. R. B. Woodward at Harvard. He joined the faculty in the department of chemistry at the University of Chicago in 1957, becoming professor in 1963 and the A. A. Michelson Distinguished Service Professor in 1974. He was a member of the National Academy of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been honored for his many contributions to science. These include the A. P. Sloan Fellowship, The Jean Servais Stas Medal, The James Flank Norris Award, The Arthur C. Cope Award and The Interamerican Photochemical Society Award for Photochemistry.

His research involved the chemistry of carbenes and biradicals, electron and energy transfer processes, the nature of the excited states in the chlorophyll reaction center and spin polarization in magnetic resonance. He is widely recognized as one of a small number of scientists who have defined physical organic chemistry as we know it today.

Prof. Closs, Chairman of the chemistry department of the University of Chicago, passed away May 24 in 1992. Upon his death, a fund was established in the department which allows graduate students to host seminar speakers of their choosing.