Draft:Martin F. Semmelhack

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Martin F. Semmelhack (born November 19, 1941) is an American organic chemist and educator who served as professor of chemistry at Princeton University. His research has focused on organic synthesis, organometallic chemistry, catalysis, electrochemical methods, and chemical biology. He is particularly known for developing palladium-catalyzed synthetic methodologies and for later work on bacterial quorum sensing and biologically active small molecules.^[1][2]

Semmelhack was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, on November 19, 1941.^[1] He attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry in 1963. As an undergraduate he conducted research in organic photochemistry under Howard Zimmerman.^[1][3]

In 1963 he entered graduate study at Harvard University, where he worked under E. J. Corey during the early development of organotransition-metal chemistry. He received an A.M. degree in 1965 and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1967.^[3] He subsequently held a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University under William S. Johnson, participating in work that achieved the first synthesis of a natural steroid using a polyolefin cyclization strategy.^[1]

Semmelhack joined the faculty of Cornell University in 1968 as assistant professor of chemistry. He was promoted to associate professor in 1974 and professor in 1977.^[3]

In 1978 he moved to Princeton University as professor of chemistry.^[3] At Princeton he conducted research in organic synthesis and chemical biology while teaching generations of undergraduate and graduate students. He served as associate chair of the chemistry department from 1993 to 1996.^[3]

In addition to his university career, Semmelhack spent 1988–1990 at the American Cyanamid Medical Research Division, first as acting department head and subsequently as consulting director of chemistry.^[3]

He remained an active member of the Princeton chemistry faculty for more than four decades. In 2018, the fortieth anniversary of his arrival at Princeton, he received the university's President's Award for Distinguished Teaching.^[4][5]

Semmelhack's early research centered on organometallic reagents and their application to organic synthesis.^[1] At Cornell he developed new palladium-catalyzed reactions, including intramolecular alkoxycarbonylation methods that became useful tools for constructing tetrahydrofuran and tetrahydropyran ring systems.^[1]

He also pioneered applications of electrochemistry in synthetic methodology. His work introduced selective electrochemical deprotection methods and later electro-catalytic oxidation techniques employing nitrosonium species derived from TEMPO.^[1]

In the later part of his career, Semmelhack's research increasingly focused on chemical biology. At Princeton he investigated the design and synthesis of small molecules that influence biological processes, particularly bacterial quorum sensing—the chemical communication systems that coordinate behavior among microbial populations.^[2] His group developed quorum-sensing agonists and antagonists and studied chemical approaches to inhibiting bacterial virulence and biofilm formation.^[2]

Over the course of his career he authored or co-authored more than 150 scientific publications and trained numerous graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.^[1]

Semmelhack served on the editorial boards of several leading chemistry journals, including the Journal of Organic Chemistry, Organometallics, Organic Reactions, and Organic Syntheses.^[1][3] He edited Volume 62 of Organic Syntheses and Volume 4 of Comprehensive Organic Synthesis.^[1][3]

Within the American Chemical Society, he served on the Executive Committee of the Division of Organic Chemistry and was chair of the division in 1988.^[1][3]

• National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship (1964–1967)^[3]
• National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellowship (1967–1968)^[3]
• Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Grant (1972–1977)^[3]
• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship (1972–1975)^[3]
• Guggenheim Fellowship (1978–1979)^[3]
• Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award of the American Chemical Society (2014)^[2]
• President's Award for Distinguished Teaching, Princeton University (2018)^[4]

Category:1941 births Category:Living people Category:American chemists Category:Organic chemists Category:Princeton University faculty Category:Cornell University faculty Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Category:Harvard University alumni Category:People from Appleton, Wisconsin