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ROBERT BURNS WOODWARD
Robert Burns Woodward was born in Boston
on April 10th, 1917, the only child of Margaret Burns, a native of
Glasgow, and Arthur Woodward, of English antecedents, who died in
October, 1918, at the age of thirty-three.
Woodward was
attracted to chemistry at a very early age, and indulged his taste
for the science in private activities throughout the period of his
primary and secondary education in the public schools of Quincy, a
suburb of Boston. In 1933, he entered the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, from which he was excluded for inattention to formal
studies at the end ofthe Fall term, 1934. The Institute authorities
generously allowed him to re-enroll in the Fall term of 1935, and he
took the degrees of Bachelor of Science in 1936 and Doctor of
Philosophy in 1937. Since that time he has been associated with Harvard University, as
Postdoctoral Fellow (1937-1938), Member of the Society of Fellows
(1938-1940), Instructor in Chemistry (1941-1944), Assistant
Professor (1944-1946), Associate Professor (1946-1950), Professor
(1950-1953), Morris Loeb Professor of Chemistry (1953-1960), and
Donner Professor of Science since 1960. In 1963 he assumed direction
of the Woodward Research Institute at Basel. He was a member of the
Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(1966-1971), and he is a Member of the Board of Governors of the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Woodward has been unusually fortunate in the outstanding
personal qualities and scientific capabilities of a large proportion
of his more than two hundred and fifty collaborators in Cambridge,
and latterly in Basel, of whom more than half have assumed academic
positions. He has also on numerous occasions enjoyed exceptionally
stimulating and fruitful collaboration with fellow-scientists in
laboratories other than his own. His interests in chemistry are
wide, but the main arena of his first-hand engagement has been the
investigation of natural products - a domain he regards as endlessly
fascinating in itself, and one which presents unlimited and
unparalleled opportunities for the discovery, testing, development
and refinement of general principles.
Prof. Woodward holds
more than twenty honorary degrees of which only a few are listed
here: D.Sc. Wesleyan
University, 1945; D. Sc. Harvard University, 1957; D. Sc. University of Cambridge (England),
1964; D. Sc. Brandeis
University, 1965; D. Sc. Israel Institute of Technology
(Haifa), 1966; D.Sc. University of
Western Ontario (Canada), 1968;D.Sc. Universite de Louvain (Belgium),
1970.
Among the awards presented to him are the following:
John Scott Medal (Franklin Institute and City of Philadelphia),
1945; Backeland Medal (North Jersey Section of the American Chemical
Society), 1955; Davy Medal (Royal Society), 1959; Roger Adams Medal
(American Chemical Society), 1961;
Pius XI Gold Medal (Pontifical Academy of Sciences), 1969; National
Medal of Science (United States of America), 1964; Willard Gibbs
Medal (Chicago Section of the American Chemical Society), 1967;
Lavoisier Medal (Societe Chimique de France), 1968; The Order of the
Rising Sun, Second Class (His Majesty the Emperor of Japan), 1970;
Hanbury Memorial Medal (The Pharmaccutical Society of Great
Britain), 1970; Pierre Brnylants Medal (Université de Louvain),
1970.
Woodward is a member of the National Academy of Sciences; Fellow
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Honorary Member of the
German Chemical Society; Honorary Fellow of The Chemical Society;
Foreign Member of the Royal Society; Honorary Member of the Royal
Irish Academy; Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of
Sciences; Member of the American Philosophical Society; Honorary
Member of the Belgian Chemical Society; Honorary Fellow of the
Indian Academy of Sciences; Honorary Member of the Swiss Chemical
Society; Member of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher
(Leopoldina); Foreign Member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei;
Honorary Fellow of the Weizmann Institute of Science; Honorary
Member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan.
Woodward
married Irja Pullman in 1938, and Eudoxia Muller in 1946. He has
three daughters: Siiri Anne (b. 1939), Jean Kirsten (b. 1944), and
Crystal Elisabeth (b. 1947), and a son, Eric Richard Arthur (b.
1953).
From Nobel
Lectures , Chemistry 1963-1970. |
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