Mark S. Wrighton

Mark S. Wrighton
14th Chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis
Incumbent
Assumed office July 1, 1995 (1995-07-01)
Preceded by	William "Bill" H. Danforth
Personal details
Born	Mark Stephen Wrighton (1949-06-11) June 11, 1949 Jacksonville, FL, US
Spouse(s)	Risa Zwerling Wrighton
Residence	St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
Alma mater	Florida State University California Institute of Technology
Profession	College administrator, Chemist
Website	Office of the Chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis

Mark Stephen Wrighton (born June 11, 1949) is an American academic, an award-winning chemist, and the current chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis.

Early life and education

Born in Jacksonville, Florida, Wrighton grew up in Tennessee, where his father worked at the Naval Air Station in Memphis. As a child, Mark Wrighton enjoyed playing with a home chemistry set (and destroyed his bedroom floor in the process).

He intended to take mathematics and government at Florida State University. Instead, inspired by his freshman chemistry professor, Jack Saltiel, he rapidly switched his major to chemistry. Wrighton received his Bachelor's degree with honors in Chemistry at Florida State University in 1969, winning the Monsanto Chemistry Award for outstanding research. He received his PhD in 1972 at the age of 22 from the California Institute of Technology, working under Harry B. Gray and George S. Hammond. His doctoral dissertation subject was Photoprocesses in Metal-Containing Molecules. At Caltech he became the first recipient of the Herbert Newby McCoy Award.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Wrighton joined the faculty of the chemistry department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the fall of 1972 as an assistant professor. In 1976, he was promoted to associate professor and was made a full professor the following year, 1977. Wrighton held the Frederick G. Keyes Chair in Chemistry from 1981 to 1989, when he was given the newly endowed Ciba-Geigy Chair in Chemistry. In 1983, he received a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant."

Wrighton sees his role as a chemist as discovering and understanding new things about matter and nature, to lay the basic groundwork so that people can make future prudent choices about technology. He is interested in studying complex systems, where the entire system must be examined to gain full understanding of phenomena. Such research is often multidisciplinary. One such areas is micro-electronics, where molecular materials can be combined "to achieve functions analogous to either biological systems or solid-state electronic systems." His research interests are centered on photochemistry and transition metal catalysis, and include surface chemistry, molecular electronics and photoprocesses at electrodes. His goals include understanding the basic principles underlying the conversion of solar energy to chemical fuels and electricity, creating new catalysts, studying chemical activity at interfaces, and developing new electro-chemical devices.

Wrighton has carried out landmark work in the areas of inorganic photochemistry, photocatalysis and the use of solar energy in photovoltaics. In the early 1970s he discovered photoluminescence in a new class of rhenium (I) tricarbonyl diimine complexes. In the 1980s he and his co-workers developed molecule-based transistors using shadow deposition techniques to create polyaniline layers on Au electrodes. Wrighton was one of the first researchers to introduce the idea of electrochemical gating as a way of controlling charge transport in molecular electronics. One of his later areas of research involved attempting to chemically mimic photosynthesis.

He has written more than 300 journal articles and holds at least 16 patents. He is co-author of Organometallic Photochemistry (1979, with Gregory L. Geoffrey), and editor of books and conference proceedings. During his time at MIT, Wrighton supervised the doctoral research of more than 70 students. In 1987, Wrighton became the head of MIT's chemistry department. He became MIT's provost in 1990.

Washington University in St. Louis

In 1995, he left MIT to become chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis. The new position required him to give up an active research career. He is among the highest paid university heads in the United States, making $738,000 in 2007. In early 2007 Wrighton was mentioned as a candidate for Harvard University's presidency.

As chancellor, he led an ambitious capital campaign and university reorganization process which resulted in the creation of 165 new endowed professorships, as well curriculum reform. In recognition of his achievements, he was elected chairman of the Association of American Universities. He is also a past chair of the Business-Higher Education Forum.

Wrighton was criticized in May 2008 when the university's Board of Trustees voted to honor alumna Phyllis Schlafly with an honorary doctorate, leading to outrage from liberals opposed to her stance on gender issues and from many other members of the university community opposed to her disbelief in evolution. Wrighton distanced himself from the board's decision with a letter to the community disavowing Schlafly's views on science.

National science policy

Wrighton has served as a presidential appointee to the National Science Board (2000-2006), which acts as science policy advisor to the President and Congress and the National Science Foundation.

While at Washington University in St. Louis, Wrighton was one of the signees of a letter from the Association of American Universities, urging all representatives of the U.S. Government to vote in favor of H.R. 810, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005. With leaders at three other Missouri universities, Wrighton wrote in support of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) research for medical treatment, urging Missouri legislators to distinguish it from the use of stem cells for human reproductive cloning.

Awards and honors

• 1969 Monsanto Chemistry Award (Florida State)
• 1972 Herbert Newby McCoy Award (Caltech)
• 1974 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship
• 1981
  • ACS Award in Pure Chemistry of the American Chemical Society
  • MIT Chemistry Department Graduate Teaching Award
• 1983
  • Honorary Doctor of Science at the University of West Florida
  • MacArthur Fellowship
  • George and Freda Halpern Award in Photochemistry from the New York Academy of Sciences
  • Ernest O. Lawrence Award from the U.S. Department of Energy
• 1984 Fresenius Award of Phi Lambda Upsilon
• 1987 MIT School of Science Teaching Prize
• 1988 Award in Inorganic Chemistry of the American Chemical Society
• 1992 Distinguished Alumni Award (Caltech)
• 2002 Honorary Professorship at Shandong University (Jinan, China)
• 2007 Honorary Doctorate Degree- Doctor of Humane Letters Florida State University (Tallahassee, Florida)

Fellowships and appointments

• Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, 2013
• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (since 1988)
• Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (since 1986)
• Member of the American Philosophical Society (since 2001)
• Presidential Appointee to the National Science Board (2000–2006)
• Member of the Board of Overseers of the Boston Museum of Science (1991–1997)
• Member of the Corporation of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (1991–1995)
• Member of the Corporation of the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory (1994–1996)
• Member of the Board of Directors of the Chemical Heritage Foundation (1998–2002)
• Trustee of the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (1998–2002)
• Member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (2002–2005)
• Member of the Chemistry Research Evaluation Panel of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (1976–1980)
• Trustee of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
• Member of the Board of Directors of Corning Incorporated

External links

• Mark S. Wrighton - Washington University in St. Louis