1975 Seaborg Award: John R. Huizenga

Award Statement C&EN (Page 4)

Born in Hulton, Ill., Huizenga earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and chemistry at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., in 1944. He then joined the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, Tenn. After World War II, he earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 1949.

He held joint appointments at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory.

At Argonne, Huizenga was part of a team of researchers who examined the residue from the 1952 detonation of the hydrogen bomb “Big Mike” on Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. On the basis of their analysis, two elements were added to the periodic table: einsteinium and fermium.

Huizenga joined the University of Rochester in 1967 as a professor of chemistry and physics, serving five years as chair of the chemistry department. In his research, he studied the excited states of actinide nuclei by high-resolution reaction spectroscopy.

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