Faculty Profile - University of Houston
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Faculty Profile

Maurice BrookhartMaurice Brookhart

Professor
Department of Chemistry

Office: STL, 404
Contact: mbrookha@central.uh.edu

Education: Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1968; B.A., Johns Hopkins University, 1964

Professor: 1969-2014, Adjunct Professor: 2015-, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
NATO Postdoctoral Fellow, Southampton University, England, 1968-69
NSF Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Los Angeles, 1968

Synthetic and mechanistic organometallic chemistry; applications of organometallic complexes in organic synthesis; reactions of coordinated ligands; carbon-hydrogen bond activation; mechanisms of migration and insertion reactions; homogeneous catalysis by transition metals, especially olefin polymerizations; oligomerizations, dimerizations, and catalytic reactions based on carbon-hydrogen bond activation.

  • 1986 Chair, Gordon Research Conference on Organometallic Chemistry
  • 1989-91 American Chemical Society (ACS) Petroleum Research Fund Advisory Board
  • 1990-96 Associate Editor, Organometallics
  • 1992 ACS Award in Organometallic Chemistry
  • 1992 North Carolina Section ACS Distinguished Speaker Award
  • 1994 ACS A. C. Cope Scholar Award
  • 1995 National Science Council (Taiwan) Distinguished Lectureship
  • 1995 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellowship
  • 1996 American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow
  • 1997-01 Medicinal Chemistry Study Section, DRG, NIH
  • 1998 PMSE Cooperative Research Award in Polymer Science and Engineering (with L. K. Johnson)
  • 1998 Charles H. Stone Award (Piedmont Section, ACS)
  • 2000 Royal Society of Chemistry Centenary Lecturer
  • 2000 Honorary Doctorate, University of Rennes, France
  • 2001 Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
  • 2001 Senior Humboldt Research Fellowship
  • 2001 Member, National Academy of Sciences
  • 2002-06 Chemistry Division Review Committee, Los Alamos National Laboratory
  • 2003 ACS Award in Polymer Chemistry
  • 2007 ACS Sierra Nevada Section Distinguished Chemist Award
  • 2008 North Carolina Award in Science
  • 2010 Willard Gibbs Medal
  • 2015 ACS Gabor A. Somorjai Award for Creative Research in Catalysis

Selected Lectureships

1998
Plenary Lecturer, Australian National Inorganic Chemistry Conference, Reilly Lecturer (University of Notre Dame), Debye Lecturer (Cornell University), Plenary Lecturer, International Conference on Organometallic Chemistry, Ross Lecturer (Dartmouth College)

1999
Pfister Lecturer (MIT)

2000
Plenary Lecturer, World Polymer Congress (Warsaw, Poland), Mahler Lecturer (University of Texas)

2001
Falk-Plaut Lecturer (Columbia University)

2002
Bachmann Lecturer (University of Michigan), Milkovich Lecturer (University of Akron), Plenary Lecturer, 1st Blue Sky Conference on Catalytic Olefin Polymerization, (Sorrento, Italy), Herbert C. Brown Lecturer (Purdue University)

2003
Plenary Lecture, Heidelberg Forum on Molecular Catalysis, (Heidelberg, Germany), Plenary Lecturer, FECHEM Conference on Organometallic Chemistry, (Zurich, Switzerland), Dow Lecturer (University of Ottawa), Dow Lecturer (U. of Ottawa), John D. Roberts Lecturer (California Institute of Technology)

2004
Pratt Lecturer (U. of Virginia), Lilly Lecturer (Colorado State University), Dow Lecturer (UC-Berkeley)

2005
Plenary Lecture, X Encuentro de Quimica Inorganica (Santiago, Chile), Plenary Lecture, Inorganic National South African Chemical Conference, (Pietermaritzburg, South Africa), Plenary Lecture, XIX National Chemistry Congress, (Kusadasi, Turkey),

2007
Patrick Lecturer (Kansas State University)

2008
Plenary Lecturer, International Symposium on Homogeneous Catalysis (Florence, Italy), W.S. Johnson Lecturer (Stanford University)

2009
Winstein Lecturer (UCLA), Plenary Lecturer, Asia Polyolefin Workshop, (Seoul, Korea)

2010
Cady Lecturer (University of Washington), M.L. H. Green Lecturer (Oxford), Plenary Lecturer XXVIII GEQO Conference, (Spain), Barre Lecturer (University of Montreal)

2012
Dow/Karabatsos Lecturer (Michigan State University)

2013
Plenary Lecturer, EUCheMS Conference, (Scotland), Plenary Lecturer, Inaugural R. G. Bergman Lecturer (UC-Berkeley), Wang-Yu Lecturer (Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry)

2014
F. G. A. Stone Lecturer (Bristol, England)