Robert E. Ireland

Robert Ellsworth Ireland (born 1929 in Cincinnati , Ohio ; † February 3, 2012 in Sarasota , Florida ) was an American chemist in the field of organic chemistry . Among other things, he conducted research in the field of ester enolate chemistry and dealt with the further development of Claisen rearrangements . He also developed the Ireland-Claisen rearrangement , a modified variant of the conventional Claisen rearrangement. Ireland's other main research areas were terpenes and terpenoids , steroids and antibiotics . He also dealt with synthetic organic chemistry.

life and career

Robert Ireland was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1929. He studied chemistry at Amherst College ( Amherst , Massachusetts ) and received his degree ( AB degree , BA ) in 1951 . He was then a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and received his doctorate in 1954 with William Summer Johnson . From 1954 to 1956 he was a postdoc at the University of California, Los Angeles in the group of William Gould Young and was funded by the National Science Foundation . In 1956 a professorship in organic chemistry at the University of Michigan followed . In 1965 he became Professor of Organic Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). During this time he worked on his book Organic Synthesis - Foundations of Modern Organic Chemistry , which was finally published by Prentice Hall in 1969 . In 1985 he was appointed director of the Merell-Dow Research Institute in Strasbourg ( France ). A year later he moved to the University of Virginia and the local was chair of the Department of Chemistry. He was also selected as the first candidate for the Thomas Jefferson Professorship, which he held until his retirement in 1995. From 1995 he was a professor emeritus at the University of Virginia. At the beginning of his retirement, he moved to Sarasota , Florida , where he died on February 3, 2012 at the age of 82. Robert Ireland left behind his wife Margaret and his two sons Mark and Richard.

^ ^A ^b Susan J. Ainsworth: Robert E. Ireland. In: Chemical & Engineering News. American Chemical Society, April 16, 2012, accessed August 2, 2020 .
^ ^A ^b The Career of Robert E. Ireland. (PDF) In: Baran Lab Group Meeting. Scripps Research, August 22, 2015, accessed August 2, 2020 .

personal data
SURNAME	Ireland, Robert E.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Ireland, Robert Ellsworth (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American chemist in the field of organic chemistry
DATE OF BIRTH	1929
PLACE OF BIRTH	Cincinnati , Ohio
DATE OF DEATH	3rd February 2012
Place of death	Sarasota , Florida