Baker Group Chemical Lineage

(assembled from various web sources)

Torbern Bergman  Uppsala 1758		Bergman made great contributions to the field of inorganic chemistry. He founded current method of quantitative inorganic analysis, specifically for determining Ca, Pb, and sulfuric acid. He introduced the binomial nomenclature system for salts and drew up comprehensive tables of chemical affinities. In addition to his chemistry, Bergman made contributions in the fields of physics and geology, being the first person to classify rocks based on the chemical composition.
Johan Afzelius 1753 - 1837 Uppsala 1776	No portrait found	Johan Afzelius, a Swedish chemist followed Bergman’s research and continued to develop methods of quantitative analysis of inorganic compounds (e.g., barium selenite) and he is notable for having isolated formic acid from ants and showed it was different from acetic acid. He also studied the chemistry of nickel and oxalic acid.
Jons Jacob Berzelius 1779-1848 Uppsala 1802		Berzelius performed more than 2000 experiments over a ten-year period to determine accurate atomic masses for the 50 elements then known. Besides his table of atomic weights, Berzelius also discovered the elements cerium, thorium, selenium, and silicon. Berzelius made many other major contributions to chemistry, The most important of these was the invention of a simple set of symbols for the elements along with a system for writing the formulas of compounds to replace the awkward symbolic representations of the alchemists
Friedrich Wohler 1800-1882 Heidelberg 1823		Initially a medical student studying under Gmelin, Wohler was sent to pursue chemistry in depth with Berzelius at Heidelberg. He successfully synthesized urea from ammonium cyanate demonstrating the relationship between organic and inorganic chemistry and introduced the concept of intramolecular rearrangement of atoms. In his studies he discovered Al, Be, and Y and formulated the compound-radical theory.
Heinrich Limpricht 1827-1909 Gottingen 1850		Limprict was one of the early organic chemists who studied a wide range of organic compounds ranging from amino acids to chlorine substituted aromatics to pyrrole. He developed many new syntheses for aliphatic acids, alcohols, and aldehydes. Included in his accomplishments are the syntheses of anthracene and diphenylacetylene.
Wilhelm R. Fittig 1835-1910 Gottingen 1858		In addition to jointly discovering the Wurtz-Fittig reaction for synthesis of alkylbenzenes, Fittig discovered a large number of organic compounds such as pinacol and biphenyl. He identified and synthesized the first lactones, isolated phenanthrene from tar and did in depth investigations into the structures of naphthalene and fluorene.                        .
Ira Remsen 1846-1927 Gottingen 1870		Remsen is known for defining rules governing the oxidation of aromatic side chains and the protective effect of ortho substituents. He also was the first to synthesize saccharin and attempted the first reaction that tried to prove the existence of a reactive intermediate by a trapping experiment. He also wrote several influential organic chemistry textbooks. Ira Remsen's reputation as a chemist prompted his appointment as one of the five original professors of Johns Hopkins University.  He served as President of the University from 1901 - 1913.
William  A. Noyes 1857-1941 Johns Hopkins 1882		Noyce was instrumental in moving the University of Illinois to prominence in chemistry in the early 20^th century. Despite early work in analytical chemistry, Noyes is perhaps best known as an organic chemist. He was the first to prove the structure of camphor definitively and studied rearrangements in camphor and related compounds. Noyes founded Chemical Abstracts and was its first editor from 1907 to 1910. He also founded American Chemical Society Scientific Monographs and Chemical Reviews
Carl Shipp "Speed"  Marvel 1894-1988 University of Illinois 1920		Marvel pioneered the application of synthetic organic chemistry to the synthesis of polymers.  During World War II, he was a leader in the US government's synthetic rubber program, designed to provide man-made substitutes to replace the lost access to natural rubber in the Far East.  Perhaps his greatest contribution was the education of a huge number of synthetic chemists who developed the polymer industry in the US. The Marvel award is given annually by the ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry to honor excellence in polymer education.
John K. Stille 1930-1989 University of Illinois 1957
G.L. Baker 1954- Colorado State University 1980