Richard Jordan, Michael Hopkins join chemistry faculty at University of Chicago

The University of Chicago has appointed two leading inorganic chemists, Richard Jordan and Michael Hopkins, as Professors in Chemistry effective this Autumn Quarter.

Jordan is interested in the design, synthesis and study of reactive organotransition metal complexes and the application of these compounds in catalysis, polymerization and organic synthesis. He has made fundamental contributions to the development of metallocene catalysts, which are revolutionizing the polyolefins industry.

Jordan and his collaborators have published approximately 100 papers in leading journals. They hold three patents, and they have five additional patents pending.

Jordan comes to Chicago from the University of Iowa, where he had served on the chemistry faculty since 1988 and as a member of the university’s research foundation since 1995. He was a member of the chemistry faculty at Washington State University from 1983 to 1987 and a research chemist at ARCO Chemical Company in 1975 and 1976. He also held visiting professor appointments at the University of Rennes in 1992 and at Oxford University in England in 1991.

His honors include the University of Iowa Faculty Scholar Award, 1996 to 1998; the Union Carbide Research Innovation Award, 1989 and 1990; and the Chevron Research Award, 1988 to 1990. He also was an Alfred Sloan Research Fellow from 1989 to 1991.

Jordan received his B.S. in chemistry with high honors in 1975 from Rutgers University. He earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from Princeton University in 1981 and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, from 1981 to 1983.

Hopkins specializes in the design of new materials with enhanced properties. The goal of his research is to design, synthesize and study inorganic and organometallic complexes and polymers that possess interesting electronic, optical, magnetic, photochemical and other properties. Using high-resolution and time-resolved spectroscopic methods, he develops a detailed understanding of the structures, bonding and dynamics of molecules in designing new materials.

Hopkins had been a chemistry faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh since 1987. He consults for several companies.

He has received many honors and awards, including the Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award at the University of Pittsburgh in 1996. He has been a fellow of the Alfred Sloan Foundation, 1993 to 1995; the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, 1990 to 1995; and a Los Alamos National Laboratory Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow, 1986 to 1987. Hopkins also was a visiting faculty scholar at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1998, a visiting professor at Ecole Centrale, Paris, in May 1997, and a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator from 1987 to 1992.

A 1980 graduate in chemistry from the University of California, San Diego, Hopkins received his Ph.D. in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1986.