Mark S Wrighton

Early life and education

Born in Jacksonville, Florida, Wrighton grew up in Tennessee, where his father worked at the Naval Air Station in Memphis.

He intended to take mathematics and government at Florida State University. Instead, inspired by his freshman chemistry professor, Jack Saltiel, he switched his major to chemistry. Wrighton received his bachelor's degree with honors in chemistry at Florida State University in 1969, winning the Monsanto Chemistry Award for outstanding research. He received his PhD in 1972 at the age of 22 from the California Institute of Technology, working under Harry B. Gray and George S. Hammond. His doctoral dissertation subject was Photoprocesses in Metal-Containing Molecules. At Caltech he became the first recipient of the Herbert Newby McCoy Award.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Wrighton joined the faculty of the chemistry department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the fall of 1972 as an assistant professor. In 1976, he was promoted to associate professor and was made a full professor the following year, 1977. Wrighton held the Frederick G. Keyes Chair in Chemistry from 1981 to 1989, when he was given the newly endowed Ciba-Geigy Chair in Chemistry. In 1983, he received a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant."

Wrighton's research interests are centered on photochemistry and transition metal catalysis, and include surface chemistry, molecular electronics and photoprocesses at electrodes. His goals include understanding the basic principles underlying the conversion of solar energy to chemical fuels and electricity, creating new catalysts, studying chemical activity at interfaces, and developing new electro-chemical devices.

Wrighton has carried out work in the areas of inorganic photochemistry, photocatalysis and the use of solar energy in photovoltaics. In the early 1970s he discovered photoluminescence in a new class of rhenium (I) tricarbonyl diimine complexes. In the 1980s he and his co-workers developed molecule-based transistors using shadow deposition techniques to create polyaniline layers on Au electrodes. Wrighton was one of the first researchers to introduce the idea of electrochemical gating as a way of controlling charge transport in molecular electronics. One of his later areas of research involved attempting to chemically mimic photosynthesis.

He has written more than 300 journal articles and holds at least 16 patents. He is co-author of Organometallic Photochemistry (1979, with Gregory L. Geoffrey), and editor of books and conference proceedings. During his time at MIT, Wrighton supervised the doctoral research of more than 70 students. In 1987, Wrighton became the head of MIT's chemistry department. He became MIT's provost in 1990.

Washington University in St. Louis

In 1995, he left MIT to become chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis. The new position required him to give up an active research career. He is among the highest paid university heads in the United States, making $738,000 in 2007. In early 2007 Wrighton was mentioned as a candidate for Harvard University's presidency.

As chancellor, he led a major capital campaign and university reorganization process which resulted in the creation of 165 new endowed professorships, as well curriculum reform. He was elected chairman of the Association of American Universities. He is also a past chair of the Business-Higher Education Forum.

Wrighton was criticized in May 2008 when the university's Board of Trustees voted to honor alumna Phyllis Schlafly with an honorary doctorate, leading to outrage from liberals opposed to her stance on gender issues and from many other members of the university community opposed to her disbelief in evolution. Wrighton distanced himself from the board's decision with a letter to the community disavowing Schlafly's views on science.

National science policy

Wrighton has served as a presidential appointee to the National Science Board (2000-2006), which acts as science policy advisor to the President and Congress and the National Science Foundation.

While at Washington University in St. Louis, Wrighton was one of the signees of a letter from the Association of American Universities, urging all representatives of the U.S. Government to vote in favor of H.R. 810, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005. With leaders at three other Missouri universities, Wrighton wrote in support of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) research for medical treatment, urging Missouri legislators to distinguish it from the use of stem cells for human reproductive cloning.

International academic leadership

Wrighton inaugurated the McDonnell International Scholars Academy as Chancellor at Washington University. He brought Washington University into the University Alliance of the Silk Road, the academic arm of China's One Belt, One Road initiative, as the first North American partner. He serves as the only American member of the Executive Committee of the Universities Alliance of the Silk Road.

Awards and honors

Fellowships and appointments