Nobel chemistry laureate William Lipscomb dies at 91

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RODRIQUE NGOWI
Associated Press
7:08 p.m. CDT, April 15, 2011


BOSTON (AP) — William Nunn Lipscomb Jr., a Harvard University professor who won the Nobel chemistry prize in 1976 for his research on the structure of molecules and on chemical bonding and mentored several other future Nobel laureates, has died. He was 91.

Lipscomb, himself a protege of two-time Nobel laureate Linus Pauling, died Thursday night at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of pneumonia and complications from a fall, said his son, James Lipscomb.

Two of William Lipscomb's graduate students and a third who spent time at his lab went on to win Nobels. Yale University professor Thomas Steitz, who shared the 2009 chemistry prize, recalled Lipscomb as an inspiring teacher who encouraged creative thinking.

Said Lipscomb's first graduate student at Harvard, Roald Hoffman, who was awarded the chemistry prize in 1981: "He was a great mentor, letting us work freely, yet continually putting before us puzzles to be explained."

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