Digital Collections

Oral history interview with Andrew Streitwieser

  • 1981-Jan-22

Oral history interview with Andrew Streitwieser

  • 1981-Jan-22

Andrew Streitwieser begins this interview by describing his family, early education, and undergraduate days at Columbia University. He then discusses his graduate education at Columbia, stressing the influence of William Doering upon his work, and his research on molecular orbital theory as a fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Finally, Streitwieser describes the emergence of organic chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, and his own ambitious and productive research program there.

Property Value
Interviewee
Interviewer
Place of interview
Format
Genre
Extent
  • 38 pages
  • 02:03:00
Language
Subject
Rights Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
Rights holder
  • Science History Institute
Credit line
  • Courtesy of Science History Institute

About the Interviewer

Leon Gortler is a professor of chemistry at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. He holds AB and MS degrees from the University of Chicago and a PhD from Harvard University where he worked with Paul Bartlett. He has long been interested in the history of chemistry, in particular the development of physical organic chemistry, and has conducted over fifty oral and videotaped interviews with major American chemists.

Institutional location

Department
Collection
Oral history number 0007

Related Items

Interviewee biographical information

Born
  • June 23, 1927
  • Buffalo, New York, United States
Died
  • February 23, 2022

Education

Year Institution Degree Discipline
1948 Columbia University AB Chemistry
1950 Columbia University MA Chemistry
1952 Columbia University PhD Chemistry

Professional Experience

University of California, Berkeley

  • 1952 to 1963 Instructor to Associate Professor
  • 1963 to 1983 Professor
  • 1964 to 1965 Fellow, Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science
  • 1979 to 1980 Fellow, Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science

Honors

Year(s) Award
1958 to 1962 Fellow, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
1959 to 1960 Faculty Fellow, National Science Foundation
1967 ACS Award in Petroleum Chemistry, American Chemical Society
1969 Guggenheim Fellow
1976 Senior Scientist Award, Humboldt Foundation
1982 Physical Organic Chemistry Award, American Chemical Society

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Complete transcript of interview

PDF — 199 KB
streitwieser_a_0007_FULL.pdf

The published version of the transcript may diverge from the interview audio due to edits to the transcript made by staff of the Center for Oral History, often at the request of the interviewee, during the transcript review process.

Complete Interview Audio File Web-quality download

4 Separate Interview Segments Archival-quality downloads