Kyösti Vilho Sarkanen (1921–1990) was a Finnish-American organic chemist and wood scientist, who served as a Professor at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

. He was the honorary recipient of the

Anselme Payen Award The Anselme Payen Award is an annual prize named in honor of Anselme Payen, the French scientist who discovered cellulose, and was a pioneer in the chemistry of both cellulose and lignin. In 1838, he discovered that treating successively wood with ...

in 1979 from the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

, and an elected fellow of the

International Academy of Wood Science The International Academy of Wood Science (IAWS) is an international academy and a non-profit assembly of wood scientists, recognizing all fields of wood science with their associated technological domains and securing a worldwide representation. S ...

Biography

Sarkanen was born and grew up in Helsinki. He did his undergraduate studies in chemistry at the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

. Later in the years 1947–1951, he was employed at the Finnish Pulp and Paper Research Institute. He afterwards left for the US and completed his MSc degree in 1952, followed by the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in the field of organic (lignin) chemistry in 1956. Both degrees were granted from the

State University of New York The State University of New York (SUNY ) is a system of Public education, public colleges and universities in the New York (state), State of New York. It is one of the List of largest universities and university networks by enrollment, larges ...

, College of Forestry at Syracuse University, under the direction of Professor Conrad Schuerch. Following that, Sarkanen assumed an academic position at the College of Forestry at the University of Washington in 1959, where he dedicated his efforts to both pedagogy and scholarly research until his retirement in 1988. His research contributions in wood chemistry, particularly lignin chemistry, have been recorded and widely acclaimed. During his career, Sarkanen authored many publications on the subject of wood chemistry, and his contributions earned him several awards in recognition of his scholarly achievements. In addition to the

, Sarkanen received the ''Gadolin Medal Award'' from the Society of Finnish Chemists in 1988, and also (posthumously) the ''Paul W. Magnabosco Outstanding Member Award'' of the

TAPPI TAPPI is a registered not-for-profit, international Non-Governmental Organization of about 14,000 member engineers, scientists, managers, academics and others involved in the areas of pulp, and paper. In addition to pulp and paper, the TAPPI memb ...

in 1991. He has held more than 1,700 citations for his research works in ''

Scopus Scopus is a scientific abstract and citation database, launched by the academic publisher Elsevier as a competitor to older Web of Science in 2004. The ensuing competition between the two databases has been characterized as "intense" and is c ...

''.

Selected works

*''Lignins: Occurrence, formation, structure and reactions''; edited by K. V. Sarkanen and C. H. Ludwig, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1971

References

External links

Scopus
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sarkanen, Kyosti Vilho 1921 births 1990 deaths Wood scientists Fellows of the International Academy of Wood Science Finnish emigrants to the United States Scientists from Helsinki State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry alumni University of Washington faculty