JOHN I. BRAUMAN
NAMED 2002 LINUS PAULING AWARD MEDALIST

The ACS Oregon, Portland, and Puget Sound Sections have named John I. Brauman the recipient of the 2002 Linus Pauling Award. The Award honors Linus Pauling, who received the 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and who was a native of the Pacific Northwest. The Pauling Award recognizes the awardee for contributions to chemistry of national and international significance.

Dr. Brauman is the J. G. Jackson - C. J. Wood Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University. His research is directed toward understanding how molecules react and the factors that determine the rates and products of chemical reactions. His principal areas of research involve the spectroscopy, photochemistry, reaction dynamics, and reaction mechanisms of ions in the gas phase. More information about Dr. Brauman can be found here and a longer biography below.

A public symposium and banquet in honor of Brauman will be held at Pacific Lutheran University on Saturday, November 9th. The Pauling Medal will be presented to Brauman at the banquet that evening. For more information, check the links to the left.

John I. Brauman

John Brauman was born in Pittsburgh, PA in 1937. He attended M.I.T. (S.B., 1959) and the University of California at Berkeley (Ph.D., 1963, with Andrew Streitwieser). He was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA with Saul Winstein then took a position at Stanford University where he is currently J. G. Jackson - C. J. Wood Professor of Chemistry and Cognizant Dean for Natural Sciences. He served as Department Chair from 1979-1983 and 1996-1997.

Brauman has received a number of awards including the A.C.S. Award in Pure Chemistry, Harrison Howe Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, R. C. Fuson Award, Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, the James Flack Norris Award in Physical-Organic Chemistry, and the National Academy of Sciences Award in Chemical Sciences. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an Honorary Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. He received the Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching from Stanford University in 1976. Brauman has served on many national committees and advisory boards. He was Deputy Editor for Physical Sciences for SCIENCE from 1985 to 2000 and is currently the Chair of the Senior Editorial Board.

Brauman's research has centered on structure and reactivity. He has studied ionic reactions in the gas phase, including acid-base chemistry, the mechanisms of proton transfers, nucleophilic displacement, and addition-elimination reactions. His work includes inferences about the shape of the potential surfaces and the dynamics of reactions on these surfaces. He has made contributions to the field of electron photodetachment spectroscopy of negative ions, measurements of electron affinities, the study of dipole-supported electronic states, and multiple photon infrared activation of ions. He has also studied mechanisms of solution and gas phase organic reactions as well as organometallic reactions and the behavior of biomimetic organometallic species.