Derek A. Long (11 August 1925 – 16 July 2020) was a professor of structural chemistry at the

University of Bradford The University of Bradford is a Public university, public research university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. A plate glass university, it received its royal charter in 1966, making it the 40th university to be creat ...

, working in the field of Raman spectroscopy.

Life

Long was born on 11 August 1925 in

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...

, England and was educated at

Sir Thomas Rich's School Sir Thomas Rich's School is a grammar school with academy status for boys (aged 11–18) and girls (aged 16–18, in the sixth form) in Longlevens, Gloucester, England, locally known as "Tommies". It was founded in 1666 by Sir Thomas Rich, 1st ...

and

Jesus College, Oxford Jesus College (in full: Jesus College in the University of Oxford of Queen Elizabeth's Foundation) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is in the centre of the city, on a site between Turl Street, Ship St ...

, where he studied chemistry with Leonard Woodward and obtained a first-class honours degree followed by a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

. His area of research was Raman spectroscopy. He then worked at the

University of Minnesota, Minneapolis The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. T ...

for a year before returning to Oxford in 1950 as a research fellow, and then in 1956 moved to the

University College of Wales, Swansea Swansea University ( cy, Prifysgol Abertawe) is a public university, public research university located in Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom. It was chartered as University College of Swansea in 1920, as the fourth college of the University of Wales. ...

as a lecturer. In 1966, having risen to the rank of

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at Swansea, he was appointed Professor of Structural Chemistry at the

, the first person to hold the title. He was the first director of the university's Molecular Spectroscopy Unit from 1982 onwards, until his retirement (with the title of Emeritus Professor) in 1992. He has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the

University of Reims The University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne (; URCA), also known simply as the University of Reims, is a public university based in Reims, France. In addition to the main campus in Reims, the university has several campuses located throughout t ...

and made a Foreign Member of the

Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei The Accademia dei Lincei (; literally the "Academy of the Lynx-Eyed", but anglicised as the Lincean Academy) is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rom ...

, Rome. He died on 16 July 2020.

Works

Long's first published paper was co-written with Chapman in 1949 for the ''Transactions of the Faraday Society'' on "Relative intensities in the Raman spectra of some Group IV tetrahalides". In total, he published in the region of 200 scientific papers on Raman spectroscopy, including articles on its history and development. He was the first in Britain to construct a recording Raman spectrometer (1948) and a hyper Raman spectrometer (1970). He was the joint founding editor of the ''Journal of Raman Spectroscopy'' (1973 onwards), later becoming editor-in-chief. His book, ''Raman Spectroscopy'' (1977), has achieved a considerable reputation and been translated into various languages. A further book, ''The Raman Effect'', was published in 2002.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Long, Derek 1925 births 2020 deaths British chemists Spectroscopists Alumni of Jesus College, Oxford University of Minnesota faculty Academics of the University of Oxford Academics of Swansea University Academics of the University of Bradford People from Gloucester