Harry B. Gray
Arnold O. Beckman Professor of Chemistry and the Founding Director of the Beckman Institute, California Institute of Technology, USA
After graduate work at Northwestern University and postdoctoral research at the University of Copenhagen, he joined the chemistry faculty at Columbia University, where in the early 1960s he developed ligand field theory to interpret the electronic structures and substitution reactions of metal complexes. After moving to Caltech in 1966, he began work in biological inorganic chemistry and solar photochemistry, including the development of inorganic systems for energy storage. Working with Ru-modified proteins in the early 1980s, he demonstrated that electrons can tunnel rapidly over long molecular distances through folded polypeptide structures; and, in the years following, he and J. R. Winkler developed laser flash-quench methods that opened the way for experimental investigations that have led to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of electron flow through proteins that function in respiration and photosynthesis. Gray has published over 750 research papers and 17 books. He has received the National Medal of Science from President Ronald Reagan (1986); the Pauling Medal (1986); the Linderstrøm-Lang Prize (1992); the Gibbs Medal (1992); the Harvey Prize (2000); the National Academy of Sciences Award in Chemical Sciences (2003); the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry (2004); the Wolf Prize in Chemistry (2004); the City of Florence Prize in Molecular Sciences (2006); the Welch Award in Chemistry (2009); six national awards from the American Chemical Society, including the Priestley Medal (1991); and 16 honorary doctorates, including ones from Pennsylvania, Chicago, Columbia, Florence, Copenhagen, and Edinburgh. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the American Philosophical Society; a foreign member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters; the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; the Royal Society of Great Britain; and the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation since 1994.