Jack Halpern (chemist)
Jack Halpern ( born January 19, 1925 in Poland) is an American chemist and professor of inorganic chemistry.
Life and work
Jack Halpern was born in Poland and came to Canada in 1929. He graduated from McGill University with a bachelor's degree in 1946 and his doctorate in 1949. 1959/50 he was at the University of Manchester and 1959/60 at the University of Cambridge. From 1950 he was at the University of British Columbia, first as an instructor and later as a professor. In 1962 he went from there to the USA and became a professor at the University of Chicago, where he was Louis Block Distinguished Service Professor from 1971. 1966/67, he was a visiting professor at Harvard University and again in 1991 as RB Woodward Visiting Professor. He was in 1981 a visiting scholar at Kyoto University, in 1978 at the University of Copenhagen, 1969 at Caltech, the University of Minnesota ( 1962) and 1981/ 82 at the University of Sheffield.
He dealt with organometallic complexes and homogeneous catalysis. In the eulogy for his contributions to the Welch price reaction mechanisms of inorganic chemistry and the complex reactions of organometallic compounds are highlighted and his contributions to the understanding of homogeneous catalysis in solution.
Honors and Awards
Halpern is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, of which he was Vice- President from 1993, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the New York Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (1974) and honorary member of the Royal Chemical Society. He is a member of the Max Planck Society and honorary doctorate from the University of British Columbia and McGill University.
Halpern was a consultant at Monsanto and at the Argonne National Laboratory. Halpern was editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. 1959 to 1963 he was a Sloan Fellow. In 1994 he received the Welch Award in Chemistry and Willard Gibbs Medal in 1986. He received the 1995 Organometallic Chemistry Award from the American Chemical Society (ACS ) and 1968 and 1985 whose Inorganic Chemistry Award. In 1988 he received the August-Wilhelm -von- Hofmann Medal of the German Chemical Society and 1991, the 1992 Paracelsus Prize of the Swiss Chemical Society and he received the Chemical Pioneer Award. In 1977 he received the Humboldt Research Award, and in 1976 the Catalysis Award from the Chemical Society of London.