In 1958 Bard began working at the University of Texas at Austin and has continued there for his entire career. However, he took a sabbatical in 1973 and worked in the lab of Jean-Michel Savéant. He also spent a semester at the California Institute of Technology as a Sherman Mills Fairchild Scholar. He lectured at Cornell University for the spring term in 1987 as a Baker Lecturer. In 1988 he served as the Robert Burns Woodward visiting professor at Harvard University. Bard has published more than 1000 peer-reviewed research papers, 88 book chapters and other publications, and has more than 30 patents. He has written three books: Chemical Equilibrium; Electrochemical Methods – Fundamentals and Applications, and Integrated Chemical Systems: A Chemical Approach to Nanotechnology. The title, Electrochemical Methods – Fundamentals and Applications, is the defining text on electrochemistry in English, and generally referred to as just "Bard." He was the chief editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The Center for Electrochemistry was founded in 2006 in order to create a cooperative and collaborative group between the different types of concentrations in electrochemistry. Bard and his group were one of the original researchers to take advantage of electrochemistry to create light. The creation of light produced a sensitive method of analysis that can now be applied to a wide variety of biological and medical uses, including determining if an individual has an HIV and analyzing DNA. The Bard group also "applies electrochemical methods to the study of chemical problems, conducting investigations in electro-organic chemistry, photoelectrochemistry, electrogenerated chemiluminescence, and electroanalytical chemistry."
Personal life
Bard was married to Fran Bard until her death in August 2016.
Awards
Among Bard's awards are the Priestley Medal in 2002 and the 2008 Wolf Prize in Chemistry. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1990. Bard was elected to National Academy of Sciences in 1982. On February 1, 2013, President Barack Obama presented Allen Bard and John Goodenough with National Medals of Science, one of the highest honors a scientist can hope to receive from the United States government. The medal honors people who have made incredible contributions to either science or engineering. "I am proud to honor these inspiring American innovators," Obama said. "They represent the ingenuity and imagination that has long made this nation great – and they remind us of the enormous impact a few good ideas can have when these creative qualities are unleashed in an entrepreneurial environment." On January 13, 2014, Allen Bard was awarded the Enrico Fermi Award along with Andrew Sessler. In 2019 he received the King Faisal International Prize in Chemistry. The Electrochemical Society established the Allen J. Bard Award in 2013 to recognize distinguished contributions to electrochemical science.