Rate My Professor Harry Gray

Harry B. Gray is the Arnold O. Beckman Professor of Chemistry and Founding Director of the Beckman Institute in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology, where he joined the faculty in 1966. He earned a B.S. in chemistry from Western Kentucky University in 1957 and a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from Northwestern University in 1960. Gray conducted postdoctoral research as an NSF Fellow at the University of Copenhagen from 1960 to 1961, followed by appointments at Columbia University as assistant professor from 1961 to 1963 and associate professor from 1963 to 1965. Upon arriving at Caltech, he shifted focus to the role of metals in living systems and served as Chairman of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering from 1978. His research in inorganic chemistry encompasses bioinorganic electron transfer chemistry, ligand field theory of metal-oxo multiple bonding, electronic structures of tetra-oxo complexes, the "oxo wall" between iron-ruthenium-osmium and cobalt-rhodium-iridium groups in the periodic table, redox-active coordinated ligands ("non-innocent ligands"), electron tunneling in proteins, long-range electron transfer via multiple hole-tunneling steps ("hole hopping"), biological electron transport and energy transduction, and protection of cells from oxidative damage through redox-active amino acid residues.