Bob Bergman

Dr. Bergman is the Gerald E. K. Branch Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus Professor of the Graduate School, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the recipient of numerous professional awards, including the Royal Society of Chemistry Robert Robinson Award and the Wolf Foundation Prize. Professor Bergman’s research career has focused on utilizing a range of chemical techniques to discover new chemical reactions, determine how those reactions work, and apply that understanding to their application in catalysis and organic synthesis. Professor Bergman’s group generated and studied reactive organometallic intermediates capable of undergoing intermolecular oxidative addition with the normally inert C-H bonds in alkanes and other organic molecules. This process holds potential for converting alkanes into functionalized organic molecules such as alkenes and alcohols.