Fred Basolo was an American inorganic chemist. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1943, under Prof. John C. Bailar, Jr.. Basolo spent his professional career at Northwestern University. He was a prolific contributor to the fields of coordination chemistry, organometallic, and bioinorganic chemistry, publishing over 400 papers. He supervised many Ph.D. students. With colleague Ralph Pearson, he co-authored the influential monograph "Mechanisms of Inorganic Reactions", which illuminated the importance of mechanisms involving coordination compounds. This work, which integrated concepts from ligand field theory and physical organic chemistry, signaled a shift from a highly descriptive nature of coordination chemistry to a more quantitative science.
Biography
Giovanni Basolo and Catherina Morena Basolo immigrated from the Piedmont area of Italy to Illinois. They had three children there; the youngest was Alfredo Basolo. He was educated in the localpublic schools, then entered Southern Illinois Normal School. The Basolo family spent 1954-55 in Europe thanks to a Guggenheim Grant. Basolo worked in the laboratory of Danish chemist Jannik Bjerrum; they were also able to tour several countries, including Italy, where they met his parents' relatives. Basolo advanced steadily through the academic ranks at NU: Instructor ; Assistant Professor ; Associated Professor ; Professor ; Distinguished Professor. He chaired the Chemistry Department from 1969 to 1972. In 1997 he and his wife were in an automobile accident. She succumbed to her injuries on 5 February 1997; he had several surgeries to repair his back, but lost the use of his legs. For the last ten years of his life he used a motorized wheelchair for mobility. He died at the Midwest Palliative and Hospice Care Center in Skokie, Illinois of congestive heart failure.
Publications
Among the many topics on which Basolo published were the indenyl effect, the reaction of coordinated ligands, and synthetic models for myoglobin. His autobiography, From Coello to Inorganic Chemistry: A Lifetime of Reactions, was published in 2002.
