Geoffrey Coates
Geoffrey Edward Coates was an English organometallic chemist and academic. He developed the basics for new materials in plastics, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals.
Coates was born in London, the son of chemists Joseph and Ada Coates. He and his younger brother John Coates, attended school at Clifton College, Bristol, while his father taught chemistry at Swansea University. He studied chemistry at the Queen's College, Oxford, where he received his master's degree in 1942. During World War II he worked with munitions, flares, explosives and bomb disposal.
In 1945, Coates accepted a lecturer position at the University of Bristol, where he received his D. Sc. degree. In 1951, he married W. Jean Hobbs. In 1953, he became the head of the chemistry department at Durham University. In 1968, Coates assumed the role as head of the chemistry department at the University of Wyoming.
Coates' 1956 book, Organometallic Compounds, was a foundational work in the field, has been translated into numerous languages, and has gone through many subsequent editions.
He died at home in Laramie, Wyoming.
