| 1 | Name: | Dr. Roald Hoffmann | |
| Institution: | Cornell University | ||
| Year Elected: | 1984 | ||
| Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 102. Chemistry and Chemical Biochemistry | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1937 | ||
Roald Hoffmann was born in Zloczow, Poland in 1937. Having survived the Nazi occupation, he arrived in the U.S. in 1949 after several years of post-war wandering in Europe. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School and Columbia University and proceeded to take his Ph.D. in 1962 at Harvard University, working with W. N. Lipscomb and Martin Gouterman. Dr. Hoffmann stayed on at Harvard University from 1962-1965 as a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows. Since 1965, he has been at Cornell University, where he is now the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters and Professor of Chemistry. 'Applied theoretical chemistry' is the way Roald Hoffmann characterizes the particular blend of computations stimulated by experiment and the construction of generalized models, of frameworks for understanding, that is his contribution to chemistry. In more than 450 scientific articles and two books he has taught the chemical community new and useful ways to look at the geometry and reactivity of molecules, from organic through inorganic to infinitely extended structures. Professor Hoffmann is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and has been elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society, the Indian National Science Academy and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, among others. He has received numerous honors, including over twenty five honorary degrees and is the only person ever to have received the American Chemical Society's awards in three different specific subfields of chemistry: the A. C. Cope Award in Organic Chemistry, the Award in Inorganic Chemistry, and the Pimentel Award in Chemical Education. In 2009, in addition to being elected to fellowship, he received the American Chemical Society's James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry for the Public as well as the Public Service Award from the National Science Board of the National Science Foundation. In 1981, he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Kenichi Fukui. | |||