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James Bryant Conant
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American chemist (1893–1978)
OverviewAI-generated
James Bryant Conant was an American chemist, diplomat, university teacher, and politician. He served as the President of Harvard University, where he was employed by the institution. His academic background includes education at Harvard College, where he earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree under the supervision of Theodore William Richards. He also taught Louis Fieser. Conant’s professional field was chemistry, and he participated in the Manhattan Project.
A citizen of the United States, Conant was born in Dorchester in 1893 and died in Hanover in 1978. He suffered from a stroke and is buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery. He was a member of several prestigious organizations, including the Royal Society, the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is recognized in the collections of the Royal Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Synthesized by Vinony from 25 facts across 2 sources: Wikidata, Vinony collections. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Key facts
- President
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Preceded by
- Leland B. Morris (as chargé d'affaires , 1941)
- Succeeded by
- David K. E. Bruce
- Born
- James Bryant Conant , ( 1893-03-26 ) March 26, 1893, Dorchester, Massachusetts , U.S.
- Died
- February 11, 1978 (1978-02-11) (aged 84), Hanover, New Hampshire , U.S.
- Spouse
- Patty Thayer Richards ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. April 17, 1920</span>"}]]}'>1920 )
- Relations
- Conant family
- Education
- Harvard University ( AB , PhD )
- Allegiance
- United States
- Branch service
- Chemical Warfare Service
- Years of service
- 1917–1919
- Rank
- Major
- Battles wars
- World War I
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- James
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- United States
- Place of birth
- Dorchester
- Place of death
- Hanover
- Occupation
- politician
- Position held
- President of Harvard University
- Educated at
- Harvard College
- Employer
- Harvard University
- Languages spoken
- English language
- Participant in
- Manhattan Project
- Academic degree
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Doctoral advisor
- Theodore William Richards
- Doctoral student
- Paul Doughty Bartlett
- Field of work
- chemistry
- Conflict
- World War I
- Military rank
- Major
- Image
- James B Conant 1948 cropped.jpg
Show 10 more facts
- member of
- American Philosophical Society
- Commons category
- James B. Conant
- date of birth
- 1893-03-26
- date of death
- 1978-02-11
- medical condition
- stroke
- place of burial
- Mount Auburn Cemetery
- student
- Louis Fieser
- name in native language
- James Bryant Conant
- start of work period
- 1917-00-00
- relative
- James F. Conant
Sources (8)
via Wikidata · CC0
~40 min read
Encyclopedic overview
James Bryant Conant (March 26, 1893 – February 11, 1978) was an American chemist, a President of Harvard University, and the first U.S. Ambassador to West Germany.
During World War I, he served in the U.S. Army, where he worked on the development of poison gases, especially lewisite. He became an assistant professor of chemistry at Harvard University in 1919 and the Sheldon Emery Professor of Organic Chemistry in 1929. He researched the physical structures of natural products, particularly chlorophyll, and he was one of the first to explore the sometimes complex relationship between chemical equilibrium and the reaction rate of chemical processes. He studied the biochemistry of oxyhemoglobin providing insight into the disease methemoglobinemia, helped to explain the structure of chlorophyll, and contributed important insights that underlie modern theories of acid-base chemistry.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “James Bryant Conant” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.