Aromaticity and Other Conjugation Effects

Rolf Gleiter has been professor emeritus since 2005 and in 2011 was appointed senior professor of chemistry at the University of Heidelberg. He studied chemistry and completed his doctoral thesis under the supervision of F. Effenberger in Stuttgart in 1964. From 1965 - 1968 he carried out postdoctoral work in the USA, one year with P. v. R. Schleyer at Princeton and two years with Roald Hoffmann at Cornell. He qualified for university teaching (Habilitation) in the laboratory of E. Heilbronner in Basel in 1972 and moved one year later as a full professor to the TU Darmstadt. From 1979 - 2005 he was professor at the University of Heidelberg. His main areas of research have been intra- and intermolecular bonding properties which were studied by synthesizing model systems and through investigations of their interactions by physical measurements supported by quantum chemical calculations. This work resulted in the synthesis of novel cyclophanes, cyclic oligoacetylenes, strained hydrocarbons and vicinal polyketones, and has led to various awards and honorary degrees.

Gebhard Haberhauer is Professor for Organic Chemistry at the University of Duisburg-Essen. He studied chemistry at the Universities of Vienna and Heidelberg and received his Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg under the supervision of R. Gleiter. From 1999 - 2000 he was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of J. Rebek, Jr. at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla. After working one year at BASF in Ludwigshafen, he returned to the University of Heidelberg, where he qualified for university teaching (Habilitation) from 2001 to 2005 under the mentorship of R. Gleiter. In 2005, he was appointed Professor for Organic Chemistry at the University of Duisburg-Essen. His current research interests include chirality induction with azole-containing cyclopeptides and the synthesis of molecular switches and motors.