Portland is in the middle of its first blast of summer. A good time to cool off with some news from last December’s issue of the Reed magazine. The magazine’s focus was on the beautiful new PAB (Performing Arts Building) and the talented students and faculty who have been exploring its riches, but a bit of news about Reed chemists managed to sneak through around the edges …
Prof. Rebecca LaLonde ’01
Eliot Circular contained a two-page photo of this year’s first-year class (“Joining the Tribe: Class of ’17,” p. 4-5). The newest Reedies had gathered in a mob on the front lawn, and judging from the ubiquitous t-shirts and sunglasses, this photo had been snapped much earlier in the semester. Still, one can reliably assume that 15-20 chemists are lurking somewhere in the picture … a story on Reed’s dedicated band of distance runners (“Run Silent, Run Deep,” p. 7) mentioned Paul Whittredge ’12, the holder of the College’s two mile record … profiles and photos of 18 new faculty appeared (“New Faces,” p. 8-9).
Prof. David Draper
These included assistant professor of organic chemistry, Rebecca LaLonde ’01, and visiting professor of physical biochemistry, David Draper, but not visiting assistant professor of inorganic chemistry, Sarah Kliegman ’02, who joined us in January for the Spring 2014 semester … finally, on the last page of the magazine, was a lovely photo and remembrance of professor Seth Ulman [English & theatre, 1959-73] (“The Prison of Memory,” p. 64) which included some recollections from chemistry professor emeritus (and avid theatre-goer) Tom Dunne [1963-95].
Class Notes was not quite chemistry-starved, but the pickings were lean. Very lean. So let me echo the editor’s note on p. 53: “2004, Advent of Gmail. Please hit Send.” We would love to hear from you and about you. Please stay in touch.
One chemistry alum who did just that was Clair Trageser ’05. She is a multimedia journalist at station KPBS in San Diego and reported a story for NPR’s Weekend Edition in July 2013. You can catch up with her writing career at www.clairetrageser.com. (Which makes me ask, Does NPR know that Claire wrote a thesis on “Pressure studies on the multiphoton dissociation of chromium hexacarbonyl”?) Another alum, although not a chemist, goes by a name that cannot help but evoke chemistry in all its glory. Linda Pauling Kamb ’54 (yes, from that Pauling family) reported that her sons, Barclay, Sasha, Anthony, and Linus, and also her nine grandchildren are doing well, as she is (“basically”).
The passing of three chemists, two with Hanford connections, was reported in the In Memoriam section of the magazine.
- Roger William James ’49 (deceased July 18, 2013 in Kennewick, Washington). Roger came to Reed after serving in the U.S. Army. He earned a BA from Reed and an MS from OSU (then Oregon State College) in chemistry. He made a career for himself as a chemist at the Hanford nuclear facility, never missing a day of work, and living simply in a Richland ‘alphabet house’ that he had purchased in the 1950’s. He was devoted to caring for animals and contributed to their charitable support, which included establishing the Roger James Animal Adoption Center in Kennewick (operated by the Benton Franklin Humane Society)
- John Edwin Norbeck ’52 (deceased July 13, 2013 in Coralville, Iowa). “Although I was a chemistry major at Reed,” Ed wrote in 1992, “I took many physics and math courses. My specialty was in radiochemistry with a secret interest in the chemistry of explosives. The radioactivity in the radiochemistry focused my interest on the nucleus of the atom, which is usually studied by physicists.” During the summers of 1951 and 1952, Ed carried both of his special interests “to the extreme,” he said, by working in Hanford, Washington, where the explosive materials were made for nuclear and hydrogen bombs. “This was great fun, but at the end of the summer in 1952, I put the weapons work behind me and went to the University of Chicago for a PhD in nuclear physics (1956).” (During his work at Hanford, Ed provided Prof. Arthur Scott [chemistry 1923-79] with an illustration for a small nuclear reactor, which he believed may have inspired Scott to build Reed’s research reactor.) Ed taught at the University of Minnesota before joining the faculty in physics and astronomy at the University of Iowa; he was made full professor in 1967. For a number of years, he did research in Europe. “Most of my funding for nuclear-physics research has been in French francs, deutche marks, and rubles. Fortunately, I had studied German and Russian at Reed, and then French and more Russian at the University of Chicago. I now have research funding in dollars, but I am grateful for the interlude in Europe, which provided a fascinating addendum to my liberal arts education.” His research consisted of colliding the nuclei with heavy atoms, including uranium, at energies high enough to break up both nuclei into a number of smaller nuclei. “Obtaining suitable beams of the heavy nuclei requires huge accelerators, of which only a few exist, all in the U.S. and Europe.” He designed and utilized a computerized data acquisition system to record events in collisions between accelerator beam particles and target nuclei, and was the first recipient of an award established by the Computer Applications in Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Technical Committee of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The award, which was presented to him in 1987, honored his pioneering work in building the first computerized data acquisition system based on a general-purpose computer. Ed joined the University of Iowa’s high-energy physics group in 2000 and was engaged in experimental work with the Compact Muon Solenoid collaboration at CERN. He retired as professor emeritus in 2002. Reporting Ed’s death, the University of Iowa astronomy department stated: “Our Iowa group will greatly miss his advice and expertise.” Ed was a member of the Coralville Methodist Church, the Iowa City Community Band, and IEEE, and a fellow of the American Physical Society. He married Betty A. Samuelson in 1956, and they had three daughters and a son. Survivors include his wife Janet Branson, whom he married in 1984, two daughters, a son, two stepdaughters, two stepsons, six grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and his sister.
- Charles Leonard Kibby ’59 (deceased May 16, 2013 in Benicia, California). Chuck earned a BA in chemistry from Reed, which provided him with a “solid foundation” for his work in the field, he later wrote. “The environment allows teachers and students to do their best.” He went on to earn a PhD in chemistry at Purdue University, was awarded fellowships from the National Science Foundation, and completed postdoctoral research at Harvard. He was a research associate at Brookhaven National Laboratory, a fellow at Carnegie Mellon University, and a member of the research staff at Gulf Science & Technology Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He became a staff scientist for Chevron Research Company in Richmond, California. Chuck and criminologist Diana L. Morrison were married in 1970; they had one son, Kenneth.