Robert F. Curl Jr. - Fullerenes, C60 Carbon Molecules

Robert Curl was born in Alice, Texas, August 23, 1933. His father was a Methodist minister and his mother was a homemaker. He developed an early interest in science when he received a chemistry set at age nine. He knew he would become a chemist.

An elementary teacher told his father Curl was not a brilliant student but was a hard worker. He seemed to accept this analysis and continued to be a hard worker.

He attended Rice Institute and received a BA in 1954. Rice had a policy of not charging tuition. Students were expected to excel or were dropped. Rice proved a good match for a hard worker. One of his professors, Richard Turner, covered the work of Kenneth Pitzer, and Curl was so intrigued that he decided to attend the University of California at Berkley to study with Pitzer.

Curl received his Ph.D. from Berkley in 1957. During his time in California, he met and married his wife Jonel, also a Texan. Curl credits Pitzer for stressing experimentation as well as theory. He remained friends and collaborators with Pitzer, who later became president of Rice University.

I think that I received an excellent education in how to do research from Pitzer.

Curl credits Pitzer for his receiving a post-doctoral position as a research fellow at Harvard where he worked with microwave spectroscopy. Curl didn't enjoy the atmosphere in Cambridge and accepted a position as an assistant professor at Rice in 1958. He has never left Rice.

Curl is quick to give credit to his colleagues and graduate students for their part in his research and achievements. He often collaborated on research. In 1985, working with Richard E. Smalley and Harold Kroto on red stars, Curl discovered a new form of carbon. The shape of the carbon clusters resembled the geodesic dome houses designed by R. Buckminster Fuller. They named the new form buckminsterfullerene, and the C60 carbon clusters became known by the nicknames of fullerenes or buckeyballs. It would take 15 years for other scientists to figure out how to create the fullerenes in large enough quantities to study them. Since that time, derivative fullerenes have become the heart of a new field of organic chemistry that promises new materials, medicines, drug delivery systems, catalysts for industrial processes, and minute computers.

In 1963, Curl was named associate professor, and in 1967, a full professor. He was the Master of Lovett College (Rice University) from 1968 to 1972, and the chairman of the chemistry department from 1992 until 1996. He was the Wiess Professor of Natural Sciences from 1996 to 2002. Curl is currently Kenneth S.

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