Biography of Robert Burns Woodward Robert Burns Woodward was born in Boston on April 10th, 1917, the only child of Margaret and Arthur Woodward, of English antecedents. Robert's father Arthur died inOctober of 1918, at an early age of only thirty-three years old. Robert Woodward was attracted to chemistry at a very early age, and indulged histaste for the science in private activities throughout the period of his primary andsecondary education in the public schools of Quincy, a suburb of Boston. In 1933, heentered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which they excluded him becauseof inattention to formal studies at the end of the Fall term in 1934. The Instituteauthorities generously allowed him to re-enroll in the Fall term of 1935, and he took thedegrees of Bachelor of Science in 1936 and Doctor of Philosophy in 1937. Since that timehe has been associated with Harvard University, as Postdoctoral Fellow (1937-1938),Member of the Society of Fellows (1938-1940), Instructor in Chemistry (1941-1944),Assistant Professor (1944-1946), Associate Professor (1946-1950), Professor (1950-1953), Morris Loeb Professor of Chemistry (1953-1960), and Donner Professor ofScience since 1960. After all of these things that he did, it's no wonder why he was on hisway to a Nobel prize in the near future. In 1963 he assumed direction of the WoodwardResearch Institute at Basel. In 1965 was when he recieved his Nobel prize for hisoutstanding achievments in organic synthesis. His studies brought knowledge to the worldand opened doors for later scientists that were in his field of organic synthesis. He was amember of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1966-1971),and he was a Member of the Board of Governors of the Weizmann Institute of Science. Robert Woodward has been very fortunate, (which was a little unusual), in theoutstanding personal qualities and scientific capabilities of a large proportion of his moreth...
