Alan Davison

Alan Davison
Born	(1936-03-24)24 March 1936
Died	14 November 2015(2015-11-14) (aged 79)
Alma mater	Swansea University (BSc) Imperial College London (PhD)
Awards	Fellow of the Royal Society[1]
Scientific career
Institutions	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Thesis	Studies on the chemistry of transition metal carbonyls (1962)
Doctoral advisor	Geoffrey Wilkinson

Alan Davison FRS^[1] (24 March 1936 — 14 November 2015) was a British inorganic chemist known for his work on transition metals, and a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.^[2]

Education

He earned a B.Sc. from Swansea University in 1959, and Ph.D. from Imperial College London in 1962,^[3] supervised by Nobel Laureate Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson.^[4]

Career and research

Davison discovered the radioactive heart imaging agent Cardiolite, Technetium (99mTc) sestamibi.^[5]

Awards and honours

He was recipient of the following:^[4]

• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow (1967)^[6]
• Paul C. Aebersold Award for Outstanding Achievement in Basic Science Applied to Nuclear Medicine (1993)^[7]
• Ernest H. Swift Lectureship at the California Institute of Technology (1999)^[6]
• Fellow of the Royal Society of London (2000)^[1]
• American Chemical Society Award for Creative Invention (2006)^[6]
• Gabbay Award (2006)^[8]
• Carothers Award for outstanding contributions and advances in industrial applications of Chemistry (2006)^[6]
• George Charles de Hevesy Nuclear Pioneer Award (2009)^[9]

Personal life

Davison died after a long illness on 14 November 2015 at the age of 79.^[1][6]

In popular culture

In an episode of Friday Night Dinner, after mishearing his wife, Jackie, Martin Goodman asks if Alan Davison would know what he was holding.^{[citation needed]}

References

1. Green, Malcolm L. H.; Cummins, Christopher C.; Kronauge, James F. (2017). "Alan Davison. 24 March 1936 — 14 November 2015". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 63: 197–213. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2017.0004. ISSN 0080-4606.
2. "Alan Davison, Professor of Chemistry". mit.edu. Archived from the original on 2 February 2012.
3. Davison, Alan (1962). Studies on the chemistry of transition metal carbonyls. ethos.bl.uk (PhD thesis). Imperial College London. hdl:10044/1/13205.
4. "Wallace H. Carothers Award Lecture – Professor Alan Davison, MIT". mitdv.org. 4 April 2006.
5. Ghosh, Abhik (2011). Letters to a Young Chemist. Wiley-Interscience. pp. 134–135. ISBN 978-0-470-39043-6.
6. McGrath, Liz (17 November 2015). "Alan Davison, professor emeritus of chemistry, dies at 79". MIT News.
7. "Paul C. Aebersold Award Recipients". SNMMI. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 10 October 2018.
8. "Gabbay Award Winners: 9th (2006)". brandeis.edu. Brandeis University.
9. "de Hevesy Award Recipients". SNMMI. Retrieved 7 November 2023.