"One day I discovered that one could get the barrier to internal rotation in ethane approximately right using this method. This was the beginning of my work on organic molecules." -- Roald Hoffmann
Roald Hoffmann (born July 18, 1937) is an American theoretical chemist who won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He currently teaches at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
"I am a teacher, and I am proud of it. At Cornell University I have taught primarily undergraduates, and indeed almost every year since 1966 have taught first-year general chemistry.""I came to a happy Jewish family in dark days in Europe.""I learned English, my sixth language at this point, quite quickly.""Our part of Poland was under Russian occupation from 1939-1941."
Hoffmann was born in Z?oczów (Poland, now Ukraine) to a Jewish family and was named in honor of the Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen. He and his mother were among the only members of his immediate family to survive the Holocaust with the help from his Ukrainian neighbors, an experience which strongly influenced his beliefs and work. (A grandmother and several aunts, uncles, and cousins also survived.) They migrated to the United States in 1949. In 2009, a monument to Holocaust victims was built in Zolochiv on the initiative of Hoffmann.
Academic credentials
Hoffmann graduated in 1955 from New York City's Stuyvesant High School, where he won a Westinghouse science scholarship. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree at Columbia University (Columbia College) in 1958. He earned his Master of Arts degree in 1960 from Harvard University.
He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Harvard University while working
under direction of subsequent 1976 chemistry Nobel Prize winner William N. Lipscomb, Jr.Under Lipscomb's direction the Extended Huckel method was developed by Lawrence Lohr and by Roald Hoffmann . This method was later extended by Hoffman.
Hoffmann has investigated both organic and inorganic substances, developing computational tools and methods such as the extended Hückel method, which he proposed in 1963.
He also developed, with Robert Burns Woodward, rules for elucidating reaction mechanisms (the Woodward-Hoffmann rules). He also introduced the isolobal principle.
Hoffmann is also a writer of poetry published in two collections, "The Metamict State" (1987, ISBN 0-8130-0869-7) and "Gaps and Verges" (1990, ISBN 0-8130-0943-X), and of books explaining chemistry to the general public. Also, he co-authored with Carl Djerassi a play called "Oxygen" about the discovery of oxygen, but also about what it means to be a scientist and the importance of process of discovery in science.
Hoffmann stars in the World of Chemistry video series with Don Showalter.
Since the spring of 2001, Hoffmann has been the host of a monthly series at New York City's Cornelia Street Cafe called "Entertaining Science," which explores the juncture between the arts and science.
Hoffmann and Brian Alan produced an English cover of Wei Wei's song “Dedication of Love“. Proceeds from this project were to be contributed to the victims of the Sichuan Earthquake. The nine artists involved in the project are BoA, Wei Wei, Phoebe, Rusiana Gaitana, Sonu, Ruth Sahanaya and three others from Paris, Brazil and Oman. BoA sings for SICHUAN’S EARTHQUAKE ! « BoA’s Jewelry Box
In 1981, Hoffmann received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which he shared with Kenichi Fukui. Cornell Chemistry Faculty Research
Other awards
Priestley Medal
Arthur C. Cope Award in Organic Chemistry
Organic Chemistry Award (American Chemical Society), 1969
Inorganic Chemistry Award (American Chemical Society), 1982
Pimentel Award in Chemical Education (1996)
Award in Pure Chemistry
Monsanto Award
Literaturpreis of the Verband der Chemischen Industrie for his textbook "The Same and Not The Same" (1997)
National Medal of Science
National Academy of Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow
American Philosophical Society Fellow
Kolos Medal
Foreign Member, Royal Society
Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Harvard Centennial Medalist
James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry
Hoffmann is member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science and is a member of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists[1].
In August 2007, the American Chemical Society held a symposium at its biannual national meeting to honor Hoffmann's 70th birthday. He also has served as a consultant with Eli Lilly and Company, a global pharmaceutical corporation.
