Harry B. Gray

 Harry Gray is the Arnold O. Beckman Professor of Chemistry and the Founding Director of the Beckman Institute at the California Institute of Technology. After graduate work at Northwestern University and postdoctoral research at the University of Copenhagen, he joined the chemistry faculty at Columbia University, where in the early 1960s he developed ligand field theory to interpret the electronic structures of transition metal complexes. After moving to Caltech in 1966, he began research in biological inorganic chemistry, and, in the course of this work, he and coworkers demonstrated that electrons tunnel rapidly over long molecular distances through proteins that function in respiration and photosynthesis. He also began work in inorganic photochemistry that led to the development of light absorbers and robust catalysts for the production of solar fuels. Gray has published over 950 research papers and given named lectures on six continents and in all 50 US States. His many awards and honors include the National Medal of Science (1986); the Linderstrøm-Lang Prize (1992); the Gibbs Medal (1992); the Harvey Prize (2000); the NAS Award in Chemical Sciences (2003); the Benjamin Franklin Medal (2004);