Carolyn Bertozzi grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts, the second of three girls. Her father was a nuclear physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, her mother a secretary in MIT's physics department.…

Lilianna Solnica-Krezel was born in Cieplice-Sląskie, a small village in the mountains in the southwestern part of Poland, but grew up in Sandomierz, Poland, at a time when the country was still under the communist…

Yixian Zheng was born and raised in Chongqing, the Sichuan province of China, the elder (by about nine years) of the family's two daughters. Both of her parents were professors at Chongqing University—her mother in…

In this interview Carl Djerassi begins with his early years in Vienna and Bulgaria, including his schooling at the American College in Sofia. This is followed by his immigration to the United States, with special…

Robert M. Hayes begins the interview with a discussion of his father's and his stepfather's affect on his life. He describes how he traveled frequently because of his stepfather's acting career, attending over sixteen…

Ivan Maxwell Robinson begins the interview with a discussion of his family life and education. He was born in the small village of Lakeville, Nova Scotia, where his father ran the general store, and his mother was a…

Francis O. Rice discusses his life and career in this interview, which begins with mention of his early days in England, his studies at Princeton, and his teaching at New York University. Rice describes his teaching,…

George A. Olah begins the interview with a description of his family and childhood years in Budapest, Hungary. Olah first developed an interest in chemistry after taking a chemistry course at the Technical University of…

Herbert C. Brown studied at Crane Junior College, where he became fascinated by chemistry and its history; when Crane closed down, Brown was among the students invited to work in Nicholas D. Cheronis' Synthetical…

This interview covers the life of Koji Nakanishi from his early education in Egypt to his current work as Professor of Chemistry at Columbia University and Director of the Suntory Institute for Bioorganic Research in…

Frank R. Nissel begins the interview by describing his early childhood and schooling in Berlin, Germany, and subsequent move to Egypt due to the emergence of Adolf Hitler's policies. Arriving in Egypt at the age of…

Roy G. Neville comments on his family and his childhood in Bournemouth, England during the start of World War II, while admitting that he was not very intrigued by his first chemistry lesson but enjoyed performing…

In this interview, Herbert Morawetz traces his early life prior to leaving Czechoslovakia on the Nazi invasion and resettling in Canada, where he studied chemical engineering at the University of Toronto. He describes…

In this first of three interviews Herman Mark starts with his study of relatively stable free radicals under the direction of Wilhelm Schlenk, first in Vienna and then in Berlin. After a post doctoral period at the…

This oral history is part of a series supported by the Center for Nanotechnology in Society (CNS), University of California, Santa Barbara, under the National Science Foundation Grant No. SES 0531184. Researchers using…

Peter B. Lederman was born in Weimar, Germany. When Peter was seven the family left for the United States, spending about six months in England on the way finally settling in New York City. When he entered the…

Richard E. Honig was born in Göttingen, Germany, the eldest of three boys. He attended Robert College, an American college in Istanbul, from which he graduated with a bachelor of science degree in electrical…

L. Louis Hegedus grew up in Szolnok, Hungary. After completing the chemical engineering program of the Technical University of Budapest, he was recruited to work at the Research Institute for the Organic Chemical…

Roald Hoffmann was born Roald Safran in Złoczów, Poland, in 1937. When the Nazi Wehrmacht reached Złoczów in 1941, Roald’s family went into hiding, then into a labor camp. His father bribed the guards to allow Roald,…

Allan S. Hay begins the interview with a description of his secondary and undergraduate education in Alberta. After briefly describing his graduate work at the University of Illinois and a summer job at Du Pont, he…

Andrew S. Grove begins the first interview session with a description of his undergraduate life at the City College of New York, where exposure to influential professors shaped his professional outlook and personal…

Marion David Francis begins his interview with a discussion of his childhood in Canada. Deeply influenced by his industrious parents and siblings, Francis worked his way through high school and college at a logging…

In his oral history Michael J. Dewar describes his education and long career in chemistry, both in academia and industry. He discusses his research and colleagues at Courtalds, Ltd. , his learning physical chemistry,…

The interview begins with Konrad E. Bloch describing his childhood in Neisse, Germany, and his undergraduate education at Technische Hochschule in Munich. During a research assistantship in Davos, Switzerland, Bloch had…

O. A. Battista begins the interview by describing his childhood in Cornwall, Canada, as one of eight siblings born to a poor, uneducated laborer and a housewife. Battista proudly details his family's hard-working nature…