Photos from the Christopher S. Foote Term Chair and The Linda and Fred Wudl Term Chair installation ceremony are available for viewing.
The UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry honored Distinguished Professor Juli Feigon with the Christopher S. Foote Term Chair and Assistant Professor Sriram Kosuri with The Linda and Fred Wudl Term Chair during a ceremony held at the UCLA Carnesale Commons on April 2, 2014.
The Foote and Wudl Chairs offer many benefits to our University, the department, the donors, honored scholars, and most of all, students, as it helps our department support world-class scholars who educate the future leaders in our field. Endowed chairs serve as a tribute to the scholars whose work brings distinction to UCLA and also embody the commitment of the donors who support their work.
First Row: Juli Feigon Second Row: Judi Smith and Juli Feigon; Sriram Kosuri Third Row: Fred Wudl, Linda Wudl, Miguel Garcia-Garibay, and Sriram Kosuri Fourth Row: Fred and Linda Wudl; Emil Reisler, Heather Maynard, and Judi Smith Fifth Row: Jack Roberts, David Eisenberg, and Ken Houk Sixth Row: Robert Clubb, Sriram Kosuri, and Jim Bowie; Charles Knobler, Tom Mason, Bill Gelbart, and Roberto Peccei
Christopher S. Foote Term Chair
In 1990, Dean M. Willard made a gift to the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry that established an endowed chair to strengthen its faculty recruitment efforts. In 2006, the Chair holder was Prof. Fred Wudl. Prof. Wudl generously agreed to provide his chair funds, with the permission of Mr. Willard, to create the Christopher S. Foote Term Chair. The Foote Chair provided greater flexibility to the Department in recruiting and retaining distinguished scholars.
A member of the UCLA faculty throughout his career, Christopher S. Foote (1935-2005) was a world leader in the field of physical organic chemistry. Foote made the groundbreaking discovery of the role of singlet oxygen in reactions of organic molecules caused by sunlight and ultraviolet light, which led to important findings about why molecular oxygen is essential to life processes and a major agent of biological damage. Foote earned a BS degree from Yale University in 1957 and a PhD in 1962 from Harvard University. He moved that same year to UCLA. He received many awards for his research, including the American Chemical Society (ACS) Arthur Cope Scholar Award and the Tolman Medal of the ACS Southern California Section. He served as a member of the Executive Committee of the College, the president of the American Society for Photobiology, and as elected councilor for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). As co-author of the widely-used organic chemistry textbook familiarly known as “Brown and Foote”, Prof. Foote also influenced thousands of undergraduate students worldwide.
The Linda and Fred Wudl Term Chair
The Linda and Fred Wudl Term Chair was started with a pledge from the Wudls in 2005, to support outstanding faculty in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. By enabling the department to appoint either a junior or senior faculty member to the chair, the Wudls provided UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry with the maximum flexibility in attracting outstanding scholars at any stage of their careers.
Linda and Fred Wudl both attended UCLA (where they met) and have since contributed a great deal to the sciences.
Dr. Linda Wudl, who received her BS in microbiology and molecular genetics in 1967, was most recently the vice president of quality and compliance at pharmaceutical giant Amgen, where she worked for more than twenty years before her retirement. She also holds an MA in bacteriology from Harvard University, and PhD in molecular biology from SUNY Buffalo.
Prof. Fred Wudl has received numerous professional honors for his work in materials science, including the ACS Award for Chemistry of Materials and the Tolman Medal of the ACS Southern California Section. He holds both a BA and PhD in chemistry from UCLA and completed his postgraduate studies at Harvard University. Wudl was a professor at UCLA from 1997 to 2006, where he was also the director for both the Exotic Materials Institute and the Materials Creation Training Program. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Prof. Wudl is currently a part of the faculty at the UCSB Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and co-director of the UCSB Center for Polymers and Organic Solids.
