Harden M. McConnell

Harden Marsden McConnell was an American physical chemist, born on July 18, 1927, whose many awards included the National Medal of Science and the Wolf Prize and who was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He earned a B.S. in chemistry from George Washington University in 1947 and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1951 with Norman Davidson. After two years as a National Research Fellow in physics at the University of Chicago with Robert S. Mulliken and John Platt he worked as a research chemist at the Shell Development Company. He was recruited to Caltech in 1956 as assistant professor of chemistry, was promoted to professor of chemistry and physics in 1963, and in 1964 moved to Stanford University as a professor, where in 1979 he was named Robert Eckles Swain Professor of Chemistry. He died on October 8, 2014.