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Organic Chemist Robert Gawley Dies

Chemist remembered for his passion for research and teaching, and his contributions to chiral organometallic chemistry

by Linda Wang
March 21, 2013

Gawley
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Credit: Russell Cothren
Robert Gawley
Credit: Russell Cothren

Robert E. Gawley, 64, distinguished professor and chair of the chemistry and biochemistry department at the University of Arkansas, died on March 18 while skiing with friends near Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Gawley’s research interests included stereochemistry and methods of asymmetric synthesis; carbanion chemistry, with an emphasis on structure, reactions, and synthetic applications of chiral organometallics; new N-heterocyclic carbene ligands; and dendrimers as ligands for monofunctionalization of nanocrystals.

His work “contributed to the advancement of organic chemistry, added great value to organic chemistry methodologies, and found applications worldwide in many syntheses in academia and in the pharmaceutical industry,” says Ahmed F. Abdel-Magid, executive vice president and chief scientific officer of Therachem Research Medilab, in India, who served with Gawley on the executive committee of the American Chemical Society’s Division of Organic Chemistry (ORGN).

Gawley joined ACS in 1971 and was the current program chair for ORGN. He had been planning symposia for the spring ACS national meeting in New Orleans. “He was a tireless worker and could always be counted on to get things done the right way the first time,” says Lawrence Scott, chair of ORGN and Louise & Jim Vanderslice Professor of Chemistry at Boston College. “His easygoing nature concealed a driving passion for excellence in everything he did. We will miss his warm friendship and wise counsel.”

Gawley was also a passionate educator, notes Jeffrey Aubé, professor of medicinal chemistry at the University of Kansas. “I did undergraduate research with Bob when he was an assistant professor at the University of Miami,” Aubé says. “He was really the reason I went into chemistry, and it was because he brought this incredible enthusiasm for science that was coupled with absolutely no artifice. He was intensely interested in chemistry for chemistry’s sake.”

Gawley and Aubé collaborated on numerous projects over the years. “He wasn’t a guy who walked around with a big ego,” Aubé says. “He was just a very down-to-earth, grounded person. He had this big laugh, and there was a real sense of generosity about him.”

At the University of Arkansas, Gawley cofounded the U.S.-E.U. Atlantis transatlantic dual-degree exchange program in chemistry. For this work, he won the 2010 Bene Merenti Medal of the University of Regensburg, in Germany, the highest award given to someone outside the university.

Gawley authored many papers. Last month, he published a paper in the Journal of Organic Chemistry titled “Double-Asymmetric Hydrogenation Strategy for the Reduction of 1,1-Diaryl Olefins Applied to an Improved Synthesis of CuIPhEt, a C2 Symmetric N Heterocyclic Carbenoid” (DOI: 10.1021/jo3026548).

Prior to moving to the University of Arkansas, Gawley served as a faculty member at the University of Miami from 1977 to 2002. He was also a visiting professor at Colorado State University; the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich; and the University of Exeter and the University of Sheffield in England.

He earned a B.S. in chemistry from Stetson University in 1970 and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Duke University in 1975. He served as a research associate at the University of North Carolina from 1975 to 1977.

In addition to his passion for chemistry, Gawley loved music and loved to dance, says Abdel-Magid, who recalls watching Gawley and his wife Lorraine dance during the Wednesday night ORGN poster session at the ACS national meeting in Denver in fall 2011. “He will be missed.”

Gawley is survived by his wife and two sons, John Joseph and James O’Brien.

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