George M. Whitesides

American chemist
his son, a space advocate

George McClelland Whitesides (born August 3, 1939) is an American chemist and professor of chemistry at Harvard University. He is best known for his work in the areas of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, organometallic chemistry, molecular self assembly, soft lithography, microfabrication, microfluidics, and nanotechnology. A prolific author and patent holder who has received many awards, he received the highest Hirsch index rating of all living chemists in 2011.

Whitesides attended secondary school at Phillips Andover and graduated in 1957. and the structure of Grignard reagents in solution. He also studied spin spin coupling in a variety of organic compounds, using density matrix calculations to examine the spin systems that NMR analyses detect. and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (1989–92). one of only 24 University Professorships at the institution as of 2014. The Whitesides Research Group at Harvard, an active research group of graduate and postdoctoral students with a lab space spanning more than 6,000 square feet (560 m2), is cofounded and directed by him. The single primary objective of his lab is "to fundamentally change the paradigms of science." Whitesides' interests include "physical and organic chemistry, materials science, biophysics, complexity and emergence, surface science, microfluidics, optics, self assembly, micro and nanotechnology, science for developing economies, molecular electronics, catalysis, energy production and conservation, origin of life, rational drug design, cell surface biochemistry, simplicity, and infochemistry." He has shifted to new research areas many times throughout his career, averaging about ten years in any particular area. Once other people successfully move into an area, he tends to look for new and more interesting problems to solve. Some of his research has been visually presented through the collaboration On the Surface of Things: Images of the Extraordinary in Science with MIT science photographer Felice Frankel. One image, a pattern of blue and green water droplets created by Frankel, was featured on a 1992 cover of Science. Early work by Ralph G. Nuzzo and David L. Allara on spontaneously organized molecular assemblies informed Whitesides' work on soft lithography. Such techniques have now become standard in the field. the origin of life, soft robotics, and science for developing economics. Whitesides is also known for publishing his "outline system" for writing scientific papers.

Whitesides is the author of more than 1200 scientific articles and is listed as an inventor on at least 134 patents. He ranked 5th on Thomson ISI's list of the 1000 most cited chemists from 1981 to 1997, and 38th on the list from 2000 to 2010. According to the Hirsch index, a ranking which combines number of articles published and citations of those articles by others, he was the most influential living chemist in 2011. Whitesides has mentored more than 300 graduate students, postdocs, and visiting scholars. He serves on the editorial advisory boards of several scientific journals, including ACS Nano, Angewandte Chemie, Chemistry & Biology, and Small. In 2002 he became foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also became a foreign member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Among other awards, Whitesides is the recipient of the American Chemical Society's ACS Award in Pure Chemistry (1975), the Arthur C. Cope Award (1995), National Medal of Science (1998), the Kyoto Prize in Materials Science and Engineering (2003), the Gabbay Award (2004), the Dan David Prize (2005), the Welch Award in Chemistry (2005), the AIC Gold Medal (2007), and the Priestley Medal (2007), the highest honor conferred by the ACS. More recently, George Whitesides received the 2009 Dreyfus Prize in the Chemical Sciences from The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation on September 30, 2009, for his creation of new materials that have significantly advanced the field of chemistry and its societal benefits. In November 2009, he was recipient of the Reed M. Izatt and James J. Christensen Lectureship. Also in 2009, George Whitesides was awarded the 2009 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry by The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, for his pioneering chemical research in molecular self assembly and innovative nanofabrication techniques that have resulted in rapid, inexpensive fabrication of ultra small devices. He was awarded the F. A. Cotton Medal for Excellence in Chemical Research of the American Chemical Society in 2011. In 2011 he also received the King Faisal International Prize in Chemistry. In 2013 he was awarded the IRI Medal alongside Robert S. Langer. In 2013 he gave the inaugural Patrusky Lecture. In 2017, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement award by Xconomy. In 2022 he received the Kavli Prize in Nanosciences.

Whitesides and his wife, Barbara, have two sons, George T. and Ben. George Thomas Whitesides was CEO of Virgin Galactic, a firm developing commercial space vehicles. Ben Whitesides is lead singer and songwriter of The Joggers, a rock band based in Portland, Oregon.