M. Frederick Hawthorne

Professor M. Frederick Hawthorne (aka Fred Hawthorne) was born in 1928 in Fort Scott, Kansas and he received his elementary and secondary education in Kansas and Missouri. Prior to high school graduation, through examination he entered the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy, Rolla, Missouri as a chemical engineering student. He then transferred to Pomona College, Claremont, California and received a B.A. degree in chemistry. While there he conducted research with Corwin Hansch.

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Hawthorne immediately commenced graduate work under Donald Cram in organic chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he received his Ph.D. Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa then attracted Hawthorne as a postdoctoral associate (physical-organic chemistry) for a period of sixteen months. He joined the Rohm and Haas Company, Redstone Arsenal Research Division, Huntsville, Alabama as a Senior Research Chemist. Hawthorne launched his career in borane cluster chemistry by organizing and leading the Organometallic Chemistry Group at Rohm and Haas, Redstone. While on leave of absence from Rohm and Haas he served as a Visiting Lecturer in physical-organic chemistry at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts conducting research with Nobel Laureate William Lipscomb.

Hawthorne served as a Laboratory Head at the Rohm and Haas Co., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and in 1962, he became a full Professor at the University of California, Riverside. He transferred to the Los Angeles campus in 1969. In 1998 he was appointed University Professor of Chemistry, the most distinguished title bestowed upon faculty by the Regents of the University of California. Hawthorne joins twenty colleagues sharing this title University-wide.

In 1966, Hawthorne was appointed Associate Editor of Inorganic chemistry with Professor Edward King as Editor. In 1969, Hawthorne became Editor-in-Chief. His many years of service as Editor saw Inorganic Chemistry grow into a biweekly publication with an unsurpassed international reputation. He also serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of Bioconjugate chemistry.

Hawthorne's research work has been internationally recognized and widely honored. Out of most recent ones The Royal Society of Chemistry recognized Hawthorne with a Centenary Lectureship in 1998. He won the Basolo Medal of the Chicago Section of the American Chemical Society in 2001. In 2003, Hawthorne was a co-winner of the King Faisal International Prize for Science for his contribution in Boron Neutron Capture Therapy.

Professor's Hawthorne research interests lie deeply in area of Boron chemistry. This includes a unique work on carboranes, polyhedral organoboranes, oligomeric phosphate diesters aiming biomedical applications.

Professor Hawthorne is currently a head of the International Institute of Nano and Molecular Medicine at University of Missouri.