Braving The Elements

Harry B. Gray (Author) Harry Barkus Gray is the Arnold O. Beckman Professor of Chemistry and the Founding Director of the Beckman Institute at the California Institute of Technology. His main research interests center on inorganic spectroscopy, photochemistry, and bioinorganic chemistry, with emphasis on understanding electron transfer in proteins. For his contributions to chemistry, which include over 700 papers and 17 books, he has received the National Medal of Science from President Ronald Reagan (1986); the Linderstrom-Lang Prize (1991); the Basolo Medal (1994); the Gibbs Medal (1994); the Chandler Medal (1999); the Harvey Prize (2000); the Nichols Medal (2003); 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); six national awards from the American Chemical Society, including the Priestley Medal (1991); and 16 honorary doctorates. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the American Philosophical Society; an honorary member of the Italian Chemical Society; a foreign member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters; the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; and the Royal Society of Great Britain. He was California Scientist of the Year in 1988.John D. Simon (Author) John D. Simon became the first George B. Geller Professor of Chemistry at Duke University in 1998. He is currently Chair Chemistry Department at Duke and a faculty member of the Biochemistry, and Ophthalmology Departments of the Duke Medical Center. John graduated from Williams College in 1979 with a B.A. in Chemistry and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1983. After a postdoctoral fellowship with Professor Mostafa El-Sayed at UCLA, John joined the faculty of the Department of Chemistry at UCSD in 1985.