Albert
Padwa was born in New York City on October 3, 1937. He obtained
both his B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University studying the
internal hydrogen transfer reactions of organo hypochlorites with Cheves
Walling. After a NSF postdoctoral fellowship with Howard Zimmerman
at the University of Wisconsin in 1962-1963 working in the area of organic
photochemistry, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Chemistry at
the Ohio State University in 1963. He moved to SUNY Buffalo in
1966 as an Associate Professor and was promoted to Full Professor in
1969. In 1979 he accepted the William Timmie chair of chemistry
at Emory University. His research interests have ranged widely
over mechanistic and synthetic heterocyclic chemistry. His group
works with the synthesis and reactions of unusual molecules, both alicyclic
and heterocyclic; with physical and chemical properties of highly strained
and reactive intermediates; with synthetic applications of cycloaddition
chemistry and the synthesis of various natural products. New types
of synthetic reactions requiring detailed insight into reaction mechanisms
are emphasized. He has published over 530 papers in the scientific
literature.
He has won a number of awards such as a Sloan fellowship, a John S.
Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, an Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist
Award, a NATO fellowship, a Fulbright Hays Fellowship, an ACS Cope Scholar
Award (1990), the Southern Chemist Award of the Memphis Section of the
ACS, the Stone Award of the ACS, the Herty Medal of the Southeast American
Chemical Society, and the Florida Award of the ACS. He was a Japan
Society Promotion of Science (JSPS) Research Fellow (1984) and was named
the Emory University Teacher/Scholar in 1988. Dr. Padwa has been
a Humboldt visiting fellow at the University of Wurzberg Germany, a
BASF Visiting Guest Professor at the University of Kaiserslautern Germany,
a Visiting Professor at the University of Claude Bernard France, a Visiting
Professor at the University of Peking China, the Rayson Huang Visiting
Lecturer at the University of Hong Kong, a Guggenheim Visiting Professor
at both the University of California at Los Angeles and Berkeley and
a Fullbright Hays fellow at the Imperial College of Chemistry in London.
He has been a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the American
Chemical Society (1984-1987), the Journal of Organic Chemistry (1981-1985
and 1996-2000), Reviews of Chemical Intermediates (1976-1980), the Internet
Journal of Chemistry (1997-present), and Organic Letters (1999-present).
He has also has served on the Medicinal Chemistry NIH panel (1976-1980),
the ACS Petroleum Research Fund Advisory Board (1990-1992), and was
the Chairman of the Gordon Conference on Heterocyclic Chemistry (1983).
Professor Padwa has been a volume editor for Organic Photochemistry
(Vol 4-11), Dipolar-Cycloaddition Chemistry and Comprehensive Heterocyclic
Chemistry. He has served as an Alternate Councilor (1978-1985)
as well as Chairman of the Organic Division of the ACS (1985-1986),
and has been the President of the International Society of Heterocyclic
Chemistry (1994-1996). Dr. Padwa is currently an Associate Editor for
the Journal of Orgaanic Chemistry (2002).
