Richard E. Smalley life and biography

American chemist and physicist Richard E. Smalley was an expert in cluster chemistry and cold ion beam technology, conducted extensive research into nanotube single-crystal growth, and championed research into nanotechnology. He is best known for his 1985 discovery, with Robert F. Curl, Jr. and Sir Harold Kroto, of carbon-60 (C60), a previously unknown allotrope of carbon. C60 consists of sixty atoms structured in the shape of R. Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome, and thus was named buckminsterfullerene. Smalley said that he was inspired to a life of science by the widely-publicized 4 October 1957 launch of the Soviet Union's Sputnik spacecraft, and by his aunt, Sara Jane Rhoads, a chemistry professor at the University of Wyoming and one of the first American women to reach that position. Curl, Kroto, and Smalley shared the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

Smalley, the youngest of 4 siblings, was born in Akron, Ohio, and grew up in Kansas City, Missouri.

Smalley attended Hope College before transferring to the University of Michigan where he received his B.S. in 1965. Between his studies, he worked in industry, where he developed his unique managerial style. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1973. He completed postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago, with Lennard Wharton and Donald Levy, where he was a pioneer in the development of supersonic beam laser spectroscopy.

Awards and honors:

Royal Dutch Shell Chemist (1965-69)
APS Irving Langmuir Prize in Chemical Physics 1991
ACS Gennady Michael Kosolapoff Award 1992
APS International Prize for New Materials Research 1992 (with Robert F. Curl and Harold Kroto)
E. O. Lawrence Award 1992
Welch Award in Chemistry 1992
ACS William H. Nichols Medal 1993
John Scott Medal 1993
Agilent Technologies Europhysics Prize 1994
ACS Harrison Howe Award 1994
ACS Madison Marshall Award 1995
Benjamin Franklin Medal 1996 (by the Franklin Institute)
Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1996 (with Robert F. Curl, Jr. and Sir Harold Kroto)
Navy Distinguished Service Medal 1997
Glenn T. Seaborg Medal 2002
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, 1978-80
American Association for the Advancement of Science 2003
American Chemical Society
American Physical Society 1987
National Academy of Sciences 1990
American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1991
Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society

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