Mark S. Wrighton
| Mark S. Wrighton | |
|---|---|
| 14th Chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis | |
|
Assumed office July 1, 1995 |
|
| Preceded by | William "Bill" H. Danforth |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Mark Stephen Wrighton June 11, 1949 Jacksonville, FL, US |
| Spouse(s) | Risa Zwerling Wrighton |
| Residence | St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. |
| Alma mater |
Florida State University California Institute of Technology |
| Profession | College administrator, Chemist |
| Website | Office of the Chancellor of Washington University in St |
Mark Stephen Wrighton (born June 11, 1949) is an American academic, an award-winning chemist, and the current chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis.
Born in Jacksonville, Florida, Wrighton grew up in Tennessee, where his father worked at the Naval Air Station in Memphis. As a child, Mark Wrighton enjoyed playing with a home chemistry set (and destroyed his bedroom floor in the process).
He intended to take mathematics and government at Florida State University. Instead, inspired by his freshman chemistry professor, Jack Saltiel, he rapidly switched his major to chemistry. Wrighton received his Bachelor's degree with honors in Chemistry at Florida State University in 1969, winning the Monsanto Chemistry Award for outstanding research. He received his PhD in 1972 at the age of 22 from the California Institute of Technology, working under Harry B. Gray and George S. Hammond. His doctoral dissertation subject was Photoprocesses in Metal-Containing Molecules. At Caltech he became the first recipient of the Herbert Newby McCoy Award.
Wrighton joined the faculty of the chemistry department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the fall of 1972 as an assistant professor. In 1976, he was promoted to associate professor and was made a full professor the following year, 1977. Wrighton held the Frederick G. Keyes Chair in Chemistry from 1981 to 1989, when he was given the newly endowed Ciba-Geigy Chair in Chemistry. In 1983, he received a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant."
Wrighton sees his role as a chemist as discovering and understanding new things about matter and nature, to lay the basic groundwork so that people can make future prudent choices about technology. He is interested in studying complex systems, where the entire system must be examined to gain full understanding of phenomena. Such research is often multidisciplinary. One such areas is micro-electronics, where molecular materials can be combined "to achieve functions analogous to either biological systems or solid-state electronic systems." His research interests are centered on and transition metal catalysis, and include surface chemistry, molecular electronics and photoprocesses at electrodes. His goals include understanding the basic principles underlying the conversion of solar energy to chemical fuels and electricity, creating new catalysts, studying chemical activity at interfaces, and developing new electro-chemical devices.
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