Chemistry Authors’ Scholarship

Dr. Gilbert is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Santa Clara University. He is a member of the College of Natural Sciences Advisory Council and Professor Emeritus of the Department of Chemistry at The University of Texas at Austin. He has spent nearly five decades in higher education, with most of that time being on the Forty Acres. He is known for his forward-thinking teaching and invaluable mentorship, and he has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Journal of Organic Chemistry, Journal of the Chemical Society Chemical Communications, Journal of Chemical Education, and Tetrahedron and Tetrahedron Letters, among others.

Dr. Martin is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and is best known for his work in the syntheses of biologically active natural products and in the study of the interactions of proteins with small molecules. He has recently discovered a novel class of molecules that are promising leads for studying and treating neurodegenerative diseases and neurological disorders. In recognition of his achievements, he has received a number of awards, including the Alexander von Humboldt Award, an Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, a Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science Award, the International Society of Heterocyclic Chemistry Senior Award, and most recently the ACS Ernest Guenther Award in Natural Products Chemistry. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has delivered numerous invited lectures and has published more than 310 scientific papers. He is an editor of Tetrahedron, an international journal in organic chemistry, and he is currently the M. June and J. Virgil Waggoner Regents Chair in Chemistry.

Together, they authored Experimental Organic Chemistry: A Miniscale and Microscale Approach, a popular textbook that has been adopted by universities throughout the U.S. and elsewhere. To help support students in their departments, they contributed their royalties from local sales of this textbook to the endowment. They hope this encourages other such donations.

“We strongly believe that publication royalties from the sales of textbooks written by UT faculty and adopted for courses at the University should be returned to benefit the students,” say Drs. Gilbert and Martin. “Even modest scholarship support can help students focus on their academic pursuits in classrooms and labs.”

Funds distributed from the endowment will be used to provide support to undergraduate students in the Department of Chemistry.