Herbert S. Gutowsky

Herbert Sander Gutowsky was an American chemist and a professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, born on November 8, 1919, one of seven children of Otto and Hattie Meyer Gutowsky. He attended Harvard University, where he worked with George Kistiakowsky. He was the first to apply nuclear magnetic resonance methods to chemistry, using NMR spectroscopy to determine the structure of molecules. His pioneering work developed experimental control of NMR as a scientific instrument, connected experimental observations with theoretical models and made NMR one of the most effective analytical tools for molecular structure and dynamics in liquids, solids and gases, with relevance to chemistry, biochemistry and materials science. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1960, received the National Medal of Science in 1976 and the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1984, and died on January 13, 2000.