Keith O. Hodgson (born 1947 in Virginia) is a Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and formerly director of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource.

Education

He received his B.S. in 1969 from the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...

and his Ph.D. in 1972 from

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

Research

He joined Stanford's Chemistry department in 1973 and then he became a full-time chemistry professor in 1984. His principal research interests include

inorganic In chemistry, an inorganic compound is typically a chemical compound that lacks carbon–hydrogen bonds, that is, a compound that is not an organic compound. The study of inorganic compounds is a subfield of chemistry known as ''inorganic chemist ...

bioinorganic Bioinorganic chemistry is a field that examines the role of metals in biology. Bioinorganic chemistry includes the study of both natural phenomena such as the behavior of metalloproteins as well as artificially introduced metals, including those t ...

, structural and

biophysical Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. Bi ...

chemistry. His research group focuses on questions relating to how structure at different organizational levels relates to function. His research is done using a number of different x-ray spectroscopic and scattering techniques such as

x-ray absorption spectroscopy X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) is a widely used technique for determining the local geometric and/or electronic structure of matter. The experiment is usually performed at synchrotron radiation facilities, which provide intense and tunabl ...

(XAS). One of his main area of focus is the active site of the enzyme

nitrogenase Nitrogenases are enzymes () that are produced by certain bacteria, such as cyanobacteria (blue-green bacteria) and rhizobacteria. These enzymes are responsible for the reduction of nitrogen (N2) to ammonia (NH3). Nitrogenases are the only fa ...

, which is responsible for conversion of atmospheric dinitrogen to

ammonia Ammonia is an inorganic compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . A stable binary hydride, and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinct pungent smell. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous wa ...

. Using XAS studies at the S, Fe and Mo edge, his group has worked to understand the electronic structure as a function of redox in this cluster. Other projects include the study of iron in dioxygen activation and oxidation and the role of copper in electron transport and in dioxygen activation. Over his career he has earned the following awards: NATO Postdoctoral Fellow, E.T.H. (Zurich) 1972-73, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow, 1976–78; Sidhu Award for Contributions to X-ray Diffraction, 1978; World Bank Lecturer, 1984, and the

Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award The Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award was established in 1959 in honor of a scientist who helped elevate American physics to the status of world leader in the field. E. O. Lawrence was the inventor of the cyclotron, an accelerator of subatomic par ...

in 2002.The Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award - Keith O. Hodgson - 2002
, US Department of Energy - Office of Science, accessed 29/10/2010 Keith Hodgson was previously the Deputy Director of the Synchrotron Division of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and Professor of Chemistry and SSRL. Hodgson and his students began work at SSRL in 1974 where they quickly made important fundamental discoveries in the utilization of synchrotron x-rays for studies of chemical and biological structure. He became the Division Director on July 1, 1998.

References

External links

Keith O. Hodgson
Stanford University faculty page {{DEFAULTSORT:Hodgson, Keith Living people 1947 births Stanford University Department of Chemistry faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences