Roger Adams was an American organic chemist who developed the eponymous Adams' catalyst, and helped determine the composition of natural substances such as complex vegetable oils and plant alkaloids.
15 Facts About Roger Adams
2.
Roger Adams attending Boston Latin School and Cambridge Latin High School.
3.
Roger Adams entered Harvard University in 1905 and completed the requirements for a bachelor's degree in three years.
4.
Torrey died unexpectedly in 1910, so Roger Adams finished his Ph.
5.
In 1916, Adams accepted an offer of an assistant professorship from William A Noyes, head of the chemistry department at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
6.
Roger Adams began a career at UIUC that would span 56 years.
7.
Roger Adams succeeded Noyes as department head in 1926, and remained in that position until 1954.
8.
Roger Adams's group developed a low-pressure apparatus for using the catalyst, which had a profound effect in the synthesis and structural elucidation of organic compounds as well as biochemical compounds.
9.
Roger Adams vigorously researched methods of preparing local anaesthetics with Oliver Kamm who was on the faculty of UIUC and a consultant to Abbott Laboratories in a relationship that lasted into the 1960s.
10.
The FBI had informed Hoover that Roger Adams was a leading member of an apparent Communist front group called the Lincoln's Birthday Committee for the Advancement of Science.
11.
The FBI had information that Roger Adams was a contributing member of a suspect Japanese propaganda magazine.
12.
Roger Adams was suspect in the eyes of the FBI because he was doing studies into the chemical mechanisms by which the plant cannabis sativa affects the brain; these studies directly led to first synthesizing of the cannabinoid known as Hexahydrocannabinol.
13.
Roger Adams was politically active, but not affiliated with any group called the Lincoln's Birthday Committee for the Advancement of Science.
14.
Roger Adams was a member of the Lincoln's Birthday Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom, which was founded by the prominent anthropologist Franz Boas to discredit Nazi racial policies.
15.
Roger Adams was inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln by the Governor of Illinois in 1967 in the area of Science.