Harry Barkus Gray (born 14 November 1935) received his early education in Kentucky (B.S., Western Kentucky University, 1957). In 1957 he moved to Evanston, Illinois, where he began research on inorganic reactions with Fred Basolo and Ralph G. Pearson at Northwestern University. After earning his Ph.D. degree in 1960, he spent a year (1960-61) as an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Copenhagen, where he collaborated with Carl J. Ballhausen on studies of the electronic structures of metal complexes. From Copenhagen he went to New York to take up a faculty appointment at Columbia University (Assistant Professor, 1961-63; Associate Professor 1963-65; Professor, 1965-66). In 1966 he moved to the California Institute of Technology, where he is the Arnold O. Beckman Professor of Chemistry and Founding Director of the Beckman Institute.

 

Honors: E. C. Franklin Memorial Award (1967); American Chemical Society Award in Pure Chemistry (1970); Shoemaker Award (1970); Phi Lambda Upsilon Fresenius Award (1970); election to membership in the National Academy of Sciences (1971); Manufacturing Chemists Association Award for Excellence in Chemistry Teaching (1972); Harrison Howe Award (1972); Phi Beta Kappa Scholar (1973-74); foreign membership in the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters (1974); Kenan Professor, Caltech (1975); American Chemical Society Award in Inorganic Chemistry (1978); Ira Remsen Award (1979); Richard Chace Tolman Medal (1979); American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1979); City College of New York Scientific Achievement Award (1981); Arnold O. Beckman Professor of Chemistry (1981-); Distinguished Scientist Award, ACS Kalamazoo Section (1983); American Chemical Society Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry (1984); Edgar Fahs Smith Award (1984); D.Sc. (hon.), Northwestern University (1984); Bailar Medal, University of Illinois (1984); Centenary Medal, Royal Society of Chemistry (1985); National Medal of Science (1986); Pauling Medal (1986); D.Sc. (hon.), Univ. of Rochester (1987); D.Sc. (hon.) Univ. of Chicago (1987); honorary membership in the Italian Chemical Society (1988); California Scientist of the Year (1988); Fellow of AAAS (1989); ACS Alfred Bader Award in Bioinorganic Chemistry (1990); ARCS Foundation Man of Science (1990); Gold Medal of the American Institute of Chemists (1990); D.h.c., Univ. Paul Sabatier, Toulouse (1991); Priestley Medal of the American Chemical Society (1991); Fil.dr.h.c., Univ. Göteborg (1991); Dickinson-Priestley Award (1991); Waterford Award of the Scripps Research Institute (1991); Madison Marshall Award (1991); Gibbs Medal (1992); Linderstrøm-Lang Prize (1992); Laurea h.c., Univ. Firenze (1993), D. Sc. (hon.), Bowling Green State University (1994); D. Sc. (hon.), Columbia University (1994); Basolo Medal, Northwestern University (1994); foreign membership in the Royal Academy (Göteborg) (1995); D.Sc. (hon.), Univ. of Pennsylvania (1995); Sierra Nevada Distinguished Chemist Award (1995); D.Sc. (hon.), Oberlin College (1996); foreign membership in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1997); ICA Sigillum Magnum (1997); D.Sc. (hon.) University of Arizona (1997); Evans Award, Ohio State University (1997); Eastman Professor, University of Oxford (1997-98); C&EN 75 Award (1998); Chandler Medal, Columbia University (1999); American Philosophical Society (2000); foreign membership in the Royal Society of Great Britain (2000); Harvey Prize, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (2000); ACS George C. Pimentel Award (2001); ACS Kosalopoff Award, Auburn University (2001); ACS Oesper Award, University of Cincinnati (2001); D.Sc (hon.), Carleton University, Ottawa (2001); Nichols Medal (2003); Wheland Award, University of Chicago (2003); NAS Award in Chemical Sciences (2003); D.Sc. (hon.), University of South Carolina (2003); Dwyer Medal, UNSW, Australia (2003); D.Sc. (hon.), University of Copenhagen (2003); Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry (2004); Wolf Prize for Chemistry (2004); Wilkinson Medal, Royal Society of Chemistry (2004); Honorary Fellow, Royal Society of Chemistry (2005); Distinguished Visiting Professor, University of Hong Kong (2005); City of Florence Prize in Molecular Sciences (2006); D. Sc. (hon.), University of Edinburgh (2006).

 

Lectures:Gray has given over 100 named lectures; these include the Baker Lectures at Cornell, the Falk-Plaut Lectures at Columbia, the Chambers Distinguished Lectures at Rochester, the Lee and Wherland Lectures at Chicago, the Mack Lecture at Ohio State, the Hall Lectures at Bowling Green, the Arthur D. Little Lectures at M.I.T., the Gordon Distinguished Lectures at Toronto, the Lemieux Lectures at Ottawa, the Kolthoff Lectures at Minnesota, the Donald Distinguished Lectures at McGill, the First Muetterties and the 50^th G. N. Lewis Lectures at Berkeley, the Baker Lecture at Santa Barbara, the Spicer Lecture at Georgia Tech, the Renaud Lectures at Michigan State, the Liversidge Lecture at Sydney, the Merck Lectures at Rutgers, the Bjerrum-Brønsted-Linderstrøm-Lang Lecture of the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen, the Musher Lecture at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Priestley Lectures at Penn State, the Le Bel Seminars at Strasbourg, the Gunning Lectures at Alberta, the Pauling Lectures at Oregon State, the Gillespie Lectures at University College London, the Wyeth-Arest and DuPont-Marshall Lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, the Basolo Lecture at Northwestern, the First Sacconi Memorial Lecture at the University of Florence, the Rayson Huang Lectures at the University of Hong Kong, the George Kistiakowsky Lecture at Harvard, the Stauffer Lecture at USC, the Grollman Lecture at the University of Maryland, the Fritz London Lecture at Duke, the Stauffer Lectures at Stanford, the Robbins Lectures at Pomona, the Dakin Memorial Lecture at Adelphi, the Saugrain Lecture at Hunter College of CUNY, the Rothchild Lecture at Rochester, the Nakamoto Lecture at Marquette, the Lee Lecture at the University of California, Irvine, and the Taube Lecture and Stanford.

 

Service (1980-2007): Member, Editorial Board, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2005-); President, Society of Biological Inorganic Chemistry (2002-2004); Member of the Board of Trustees (1995-2001, Chairman, 2000), Gordon Research Conferences; Member of the Council, National Academy of Sciences (1986-1989); Member of the Governing Board, National Research Council (1986-1989); Member of the Board of Directors, Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation (1994-); Chairman, Beckman Foundation Grants Advisory Council (1990-1993); Member, Sloan Foundation Chemistry Advisory Committee (1987-1992); Chairman, NSF Advisory Committee for Chemistry (1982-1983); Chairman, NAS Section of Chemistry (1982-1985); Chairman, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Caltech (1978-1984); Chairman, Bioinorganic Subdivision of the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry (1985); Member, NAS-NRC Committee to Survey Opportunities in the Chemical Sciences (1983-1986); Member, NAS/NAE/IOM Federal Budget Priorities Committee (1988); Member, NAS/NAE/IOM COSEPUP (1989-1992); Member, NAS Film Committee (1986-1992); Member, ACS Committee on Professional Training (1976-1984); Chairman, NSF Workshop on Undergraduate Education in Chemistry (1988); Member, ACS Committee on Science (1985-1990); Chairman, Advisory Board for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (1987-1989); Chairman, Advisory Committee for the INC Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory (1985-1990); Chairman, Visiting Committee for the Chemistry Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory (1980); Chairman, Visiting Committee for the Photoconversion Branch, Solar Energy Research Institute (1982-1983); Chairman, Gordon Conference on Metals in Biology (1982).