John Monteath Robertson
John Monteath Robertson , called Monteath Robertson (born July 24, 1900 in Auchterarder , † December 27, 1989 in Inverness ) was a Scottish chemist. He was Gardiner Professor of Chemistry at Glasgow University and studied X-ray crystallography in organic chemistry .
Robertson was born on a farm near Auchterarder and studied chemistry from 1919 at the University of Glasgow with a bachelor's degree in 1923, a master's degree in 1925 and a doctorate under George Gerald Henderson (1862–1942) in 1926 (he also received a D. Sc.). As a post-doctoral student he worked at the Royal Institution in London with William Henry Bragg until 1928 and spent two years in the USA as a Commonwealth Fellow. In 1939 he became a senior lecturer in physical chemistry at the University of Sheffield . During World War II he was a scientific advisor to the Royal Air Force. After the war he became a professor in Glasgow.
He pioneered the application of X-ray crystallography to organic chemistry and played an important role in solving the phase problem in X-ray crystallography with the development of heavy atom replacement methods and isomorphic replacement methods. In 1960 his group clarified the structure of limonine .
In 1960 he received the Davy Medal . In 1962 he became CBE . 1962 to 1964 he was President of the Chemical Society. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh . The University of Glasgow's J. M. Robertson Protein Crystallography Laboratory was named after him in 1989.
His PhD students include Harrison Massey Macdougal Shearer (Durham University), Michael Rossmann (Purdue University), Iain Campbell Paul (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), John Greville White , Jack Dunitz (ETH Zurich).
Web links
- Biography at the University of Glasgow
- Life data, publications and academic family tree of John Monteath Robertson at academictree.org
Individual evidence
- ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF file) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed April 3, 2020 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Robertson, John Monteath |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Robertson, Monteath |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Scottish chemist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 24, 1900 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | at Auchterarder |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 27, 1989 |
| Place of death | Inverness |