Michael O’Keeffe (born April 3, 1934) is a British-American chemist. He is currently Regents’ Professor Emeritus in the School of Molecular Sciences at

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public university, public research university in Tempe, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 as Territorial Normal School by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, the university is o ...

. As a scientist, he is particularly known for his contributions to the field of reticular chemistry. In 2019, he received the

Gregori Aminoff Prize The Gregori Aminoff Prize is an international prize awarded since 1979 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in the field of crystallography, rewarding "a documented, individual contribution in the field of crystallography, including areas concer ...

Crystallography Crystallography is the branch of science devoted to the study of molecular and crystalline structure and properties. The word ''crystallography'' is derived from the Ancient Greek word (; "clear ice, rock-crystal"), and (; "to write"). In J ...

from the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...

Early life and education

Michael O’Keeffe was born in

Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as ''Bury,'' is a cathedral as well as market town and civil parish in the West Suffolk District, West Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St. Edmunds an ...

Suffolk, England Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

, on the 3rd April, 1934. He was one of four children born to Dr. E. Joseph O’Keeffe, an immigrant from Ireland, and his mother Marjorie G. O’Keeffe (née Marten). From 1942 to 1951 he attended

Prior Park College Prior Park College is a co-educational public school for both boarding and day pupils in Bath, south-west England. Its main building, Prior Park, stands on a hill overlooking the city and is a Grade I listed building. The adjoining Prior P ...

(Bath) and then from 1951 to 1957 the

University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a public university, public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Br ...

: B.Sc. in chemistry (1954), Ph.D. (1958, mentor Frank S. Stone). He spent 1958-1959 at

Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium The Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium (English translation: ''Philips Physics Laboratory'') or NatLab was the Dutch section of the Philips research department, which did research for the product divisions of that company. In 1975, the NatLab em ...

(group of Evert W. Gorter) then did postdoctoral research at

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a state university system, system of Public university, public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. The system has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration o ...

(mentor Walter J. Moore). 1960-62. He subsequently became a U. S. citizen.

Career

In 1963, he joined

where he is now Regents’ Professor of Chemistry. Early research work was devoted to the study of defects, conductivity and

diffusion Diffusion is the net movement of anything (for example, atoms, ions, molecules, energy) generally from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Diffusion is driven by a gradient in Gibbs free energy or chemical p ...

in solids, particularly solid electrolytes. His more recent research is devoted to the theory of periodic structures (nets ( periodic graph (crystallography)), tilings (periodic

tessellations A tessellation or tiling is the covering of a surface, often a plane (mathematics), plane, using one or more geometric shapes, called ''tiles'', with no overlaps and no gaps. In mathematics, tessellation can be generalized to high-dimensiona ...

, and weavings (a higher dimensional version of

Braid theory In mathematics, the braid group on strands (denoted B_n), also known as the Artin braid group, is the group whose elements are equivalence classes of -braids (e.g. under ambient isotopy), and whose group operation is composition of braids (see ...

)) relevant to development of a

taxonomy image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...

of such structures and its application to materials design and description. In collaboration with

Omar Yaghi Omar M. Yaghi (; born February 9, 1965) is the James and Neeltje Tretter Chair Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, an affiliate scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the founding director of the Berkel ...

, O’Keeffe developed reticular chemistry, a new branch of chemistry that links molecular fragments of well-defined shapes with strong bonds to build symmetrical open structures such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs),

zeolitic imidazolate frameworks Zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) are a class of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that are topologically isomorphic with zeolites. ZIFs are composed of tetrahedrally-coordinated transition metal ions (e.g. Fe, Co, Zn) connected by imida ...

(ZIFs), and covalent organic frameworks (COFs) Together with Olaf Delgado-Friedrichs, he has developed the Reticular Chemistry Structure Resource (RCSR) a compendium of structures relevant to design of materials on the molecular level. O'Keeffe has published three books, including one of the standard monographs on periodic structures, and more than 300 refereed papers. His work is highly cited (over 100,000 citations and h index over 100), and he was third in the Clarivate#Highly Cited Researchers list of Top 100 Chemists, 2000-2010

Honors and awards

Among his honors are: the 2019

(

Royal Swedish Academy The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...

); the Bernal Distinguished Lecturer,

University of Limerick University of Limerick (UL) () is a Public university, public research university institution in Limerick, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Founded in 1972, as the National Institute for Higher Education, Limerick, it became a university in Septemb ...

, 2017; the World Class Professorship,

KAIST KAIST (originally the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) is a national university, national research university located in Daedeok Innopolis, Daejeon, South Korea. KAIST was established by the Korean government in 1971 as the ...

, Korea, 2013;

Newcomb Cleveland Prize The Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is annually awarded to author(s) of outstanding scientific paper published in the Research Articles or Reports sections of ''Science Science is a ...

from the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

in 2007;

Regents' Professor Professors in the United States commonly occupy any of several positions of teaching and research within a college or university. In the U.S., the word "professor" is often used to refer to anyone who teaches at a college of university level at ...

, Arizona State University 1994; and D. Sc. “for excellence in published research”

, 1976.

Bibliography

* * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:OKeefe, Michael 1934 births Living people Arizona State University faculty Alumni of the University of Bristol English people of Irish descent People from Bury St Edmunds English emigrants to the United States 21st-century American chemists People educated at Prior Park College 20th-century American chemists Inorganic chemists American crystallographers Solid state chemists British crystallographers

Early life and education

Career

Honors and awards

Bibliography

See also

References