The UC Santa Cruz department of chemistry and biochemistry conveyed the sad news that Joe Bunnett passed away on May 22. Joe was well-known to many in the physical organic chemistry community and beyond. After graduating from Reed with a BA in chemistry (thesis: “Some reactions of iodine pentafluoride”), Joe earned his Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Rochester. He returned to Reed to teach chemistry in the late 40’s-early 50’s, and then made a series of moves that brought him to the faculty of Brown University, and eventually to UC Santa Cruz in 1966.
Joe was well-known for his investigations of aromatic substitution reaction mechanisms, and his leadership in the creation of Accounts of Chemical Research, a monthly review journal. He spent the last part of his career as the chair of a multinational task force on the destruction of chemical weapons. He received several awards for his work, including the American Chemical Society’s James Flack Norris Award in Physical Chemistry (1992), and being elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2001 UC Santa Cruz created an annual lectureship in his honor. (A picture of Joe and the 2011 Bunnett lecturer, Prof. Mary Anne Fox, appeared in the Class Notes section of the Reed magazine, Sept. 2011.)
Joe was also well-known in the chemical community for having published a technical research article in verse (Bunnett & Kearley Jr., “Comparative mobility of halogens in reactions of dihalobenzenes with potassium amide in ammonia” J. Org. Chem., 1971, 36 (1), pp 184–186, DOI: 10.1021/jo00800a036). The article begins:
He even presented a defense of this practice (in verse) at the ACS membership meeting in 2008. Perhaps an early exposure to the Iliad had something to do with this? I can only assume that this might be the case, which brings up another important point: Joe was famous at UC Santa Cruz campus for a framed needlepoint that he kept on the wall near his desk. The needlepoint states, “Don’t make verifiable assumptions,” and this was a message that Joe thought everyone should know. (Aaron Nilsen, a UCSC PhD, informs me that this was a phrase that “every grad student knew thanks to Professor Bunnett.”) So perhaps I shouldn’t go out on a limb regarding the Iliad. There might be a way to find out what had inspired chemistry in verse.
A personal note: I first met Joe in 1989 when I was interviewed by UC Santa Cruz for a faculty position. Although he graciously played the part of “retired professor” during our rambles around campus (he pointed out a dirt path that the students had named the “Ho Chi Minh” trail back in Santa Cruz’s early days), I knew within seconds that appearances could be deceiving, and that here was a sharp-eyed, quick mind that should not be underestimated. Indeed, a short ways into our first conversation he informed me that he was a trustee at Reed College (where I had just interviewed the week before) and would be able to keep an eye on me no matter where I ended up. I took the Reed connection of that warning lightly, but “keep an eye on me” is exactly what he did. He stopped by my office every time he came to campus for a trustee meeting and to check on what I was up to. On one early visit he inserted a copy of the Oberlin annual chemistry newsletter into my hands and said, “Reed needs to do something like this.” This blog is the result of that conversation. Thank you, Joe. Like so many of your ideas, it was a good one.