Oral history interview with Vladimir Prelog
- 1984-Jan-17
Oral history interview with Vladimir Prelog
- 1984-Jan-17
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.In this interview Vladimir Prelog discusses his career as an organic chemist. Prelog describes a thirty five year long affiliation with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH). This includes work with the chemistry of natural products and with stereochemistry, and his creation (with Cahn and Ingold) of the CIP system for defining absolute configuration.
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About the Interviewer
Tonja A. Koeppel received a master’s degree in chemistry from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1944. Since then she has written about chemistry, done research, and taught college chemistry. Dr. Koeppel is also a historian of chemistry. In 1973 she earned a PhD degree in the history and sociology of science from the University of Pennsylvania. She is especially interested in the development of organic chemistry in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
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| Oral history number | 0038 |
Related Items
Interviewee biographical information
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Education
| Year | Institution | Degree | Discipline |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1929 | České vysoké učení technické v Praze | DSc | Chemistry |
Professional Experience
Laboratory of G.J. Driza
- 1929 to 1935 Head
Sveučilište u Zagrebu
- 1935 to 1941 Lecturer and Associate Professor
Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich
- 1942 to 1950 Lecturer and Associate Professor
- 1950 to 1976 Professor
- 1957 to 1965 Head, Laboratory of Organic Chemistry
Honors
| Year(s) | Award |
|---|---|
| 1946 | Werner Medal and Prize, Swiss Chemical Society |
| 1962 | Stas Medal, Belgian Chemical Society |
| 1962 | Medal of Honor, Rice University |
| 1965 | Marcel Benoist Prize, Switzerland |
| 1966 | Hanus Medal, Czechoslovakian Chemical Society |
| 1967 | A. W. von Hofmann Memorial Medal, German Chemical Society |
| 1968 | Davy Medal, Royal Society of London |
| 1969 | Roger Adams Award, American Chemical Society |
| 1974 | Paul Karrer Award, University of Zürich |
| 1975 | Nobel Prize for Chemistry |
| 1976 | Paracelsus Medal |
| 1977 | Order of the Yugoslavian Star |
| 1977 | Order of the Rising Sun, Japan |
| 1978 | Emil Votocek Medal, Chemical-Technical University, Prague |
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Complete transcript of interview
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.