Richard "Dick" A. Andersen (November 16, 1942 – June 16, 2019) was a professor of chemistry at the

University of California, 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 u ...

, and faculty senior scientist at the chemical sciences division of

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...

Early life and career

Born in Oklahoma in 1942, Richard Allan Andersen was raised and educated in the small town of Yankton,

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...

. He obtained his bachelor's degree in 1965 from the

University of South Dakota The University of South Dakota (USD) is a public research university in Vermillion, South Dakota. Established by the Dakota Territory legislature in 1862, 27 years before the establishment of the state of South Dakota, USD is the flagship univ ...

. Andersen pursued graduate studies at the

University of Wyoming The University of Wyoming (UW) is a public land-grant research university in Laramie, Wyoming. It was founded in March 1886, four years before the territory was admitted as the 44th state, and opened in September 1887. The University of Wyomin ...

, working under the supervision of Professor Geoffrey Coates. Andersen was Coates' last student. In 1973, Andersen earned his Ph.D. with several fundamental organometallic and alkoxide compounds of beryllium. Andersen then spent a year as postdoctoral researcher at the Oslo Centre for Industrial Research. On the day it was announced that

Geoffrey Wilkinson Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson FRS (14 July 1921 – 26 September 1996) was a Nobel laureate English chemist who pioneered inorganic chemistry and homogeneous transition metal catalysis. Education and early life Wilkinson was born at Springside, Todm ...

and Ernst O. Fisher would share the 1973

Nobel Prize in Chemistry ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then "M ...

, Andersen received an offer to conduct his postdoctoral research in Wilkinson's laboratory at

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a ...

. Andersen took up this post a few months later, in 1974. In June 1976 he joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley's department of chemistry. He remained a professor in the department until his death in 2019. Andersen was also active in teaching throughout his career, and was well-known for teaching from the primary inorganic chemistry literature, as well as his hands-on approach to teaching undergraduate laboratory courses.

Research

Andersen began his independent research career at UC Berkeley in 1976. Initially his research focused on ligand substitution patterns in quadruply-bonded Mo₂ complexes. He also studied actinide coordination complexes bearing the sterically bulky amido ligand –N(SiMe₃)₂, including the uranium(III) compound U (SiMe₃)₂sub>3, which was later found to have pyramidal geometry.

Awards and honors

Andersen was awarded many Visiting Professorships around the world, including appointments in Sevilla, Lyon, Montpellier, New South Wales, and Zurich. He was also an

Alexander von Humboldt Professor The Alexander von Humboldt Professorship is an academic prize named after Alexander von Humboldt and awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation since 2008. The prize is intended to attract internationally leading scientists from abroad to Ger ...

in various locations in Germany (1994). Andersen was also a member of the

Royal Chemical Society The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society (professional association) in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the Royal Inst ...

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

Sigma Xi Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society () is a highly prestigious, non-profit honor society for scientists and engineers. Sigma Xi was founded at Cornell University by a junior faculty member and a small group of graduate students in 1886 ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Andersen, Richard A. 1942 births 2019 deaths American chemists Academics from Oklahoma Inorganic chemists 20th-century chemists 21st-century American chemists UC Berkeley College of Chemistry faculty Chemists from Oklahoma Chemists from South Dakota