William von Eggers Doering (June 22, 1917 – January 3, 2011) was the Mallinckrodt Professor of
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...
at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. Before Harvard, he taught at
Columbia
Columbia may refer to:
* Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America
Places North America Natural features
* Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region in ...
(1942–1952) and
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
(1952–1968).
Doering was born in Fort Worth, Texas to academics Carl Rupp Doering and Antoinette Mathilde von Eggers, both of whom were professors at
Texas Christian University
Texas Christian University (TCU) is a private research university in Fort Worth, Texas. It was established in 1873 by brothers Addison and Randolph Clark as the Add-Ran Male & Female College. It is affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples ...
. His maternal great-uncle was the prominent German financier and economist
Hjalmar Schacht, sometime President of the ''
Reichsbank'' and cabinet minister in
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
.
Doering was an undergraduate at Harvard University, where he took courses with some of the leading organic chemists at the time, including Louis Fieser and Paul Bartlett. He stayed at Harvard for his graduate education, where he studied catalytic hydrogenation under Reginald Linstead, completing his PhD in 1943. Before beginning his independent career, he became famous for completing a (formal)
quinine total synthesis
The total synthesis of quinine, a naturally-occurring antimalarial drug, was developed over a 150-year period. The development of synthetic quinine is considered a milestone in organic chemistry although it has never been produced industrially as a ...
with
Robert Burns Woodward as a postdoctoral scholar, a wartime achievement that was publicized at the time by the national news media, including TIME magazine. Subsequently, during an independent career at Columbia, Yale, and Harvard that spanned over half a century, he made numerous contributions to the field of
physical organic chemistry.
Having published his first scientific paper in 1939 and his last in 2008, he holds the rare distinction of having authored scholarly articles in eight different decades. In 1989, he received the "James Flack Norris Award in Physical Organic Chemistry" of the
American Chemical Society
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all d ...
and in 1990 the
Robert A. Welch Award in Chemistry.
Some of his major contributions include recognition of the aromatic nature of the
tropylium cation and the early use of
1H NMR for the characterization of carbocations and other reactive intermediates, including heptamethylbenzenium cation, investigation of the stereochemistry of the
Cope rearrangement, and pioneering work in
carbene
In organic chemistry, a carbene is a molecule containing a neutral carbon atom with a valence of two and two unshared valence electrons. The general formula is or where the R represents substituents or hydrogen atoms.
The term "carbene" ma ...
chemistry, including the discovery of
dichlorocarbene. Some other notable work include the synthesis of
fulvalene, the discoveries of the
Doering-LaFlamme allene synthesis and the
Parikh-Doering oxidation, prediction of the existence of
bullvalene as a
fluxional molecule
In chemistry and molecular physics, fluxional (or non-rigid) molecules are molecules that undergo dynamics such that some or all of their atoms interchange between symmetry-equivalent positions. Because virtually all molecules are fluxional in som ...
, and elucidation of the mechanism of the
Baeyer–Villiger oxidation. Together with H. H. Zeiss, he proposed the Doering-Zeiss mechanistic hypothesis for
solvolysis reactions. He first articulated the notion that cyclic systems with (4''n'' + 2) π-electrons exhibit aromatic stability (the modern form of
Hückel's rule) and coined the term "carbene" in collaboration with Woodward and
Winstein during a nocturnal cab ride in Chicago.
Doering became
emeritus
''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
in 1986, but continued to advise graduate students and publish.
Notes
References
* Daintith, John
''Biographical encyclopedia of scientists'' CRC Press, 1994.
External links
William von Eggers Doering– Michigan State University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Doering, William Von Eggers
1917 births
Harvard University faculty
American chemists
People from Fort Worth, Texas
2011 deaths
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Columbia University faculty
Yale University faculty
Harvard University alumni