Organic chemist K. Peter C. Vollhardt, University of California, Berkeley, USA, celebrates his 70th birthday on March 7, 2016.
Professor Vollhardt’s research focuses on the application of transition metals to organic synthesis. His interests include the assembly of novel oligometallic arrays, total synthesis, the use of cobalt, palladium, and nickel in the construction of complex organic molecules, exploring the scope of the cobalt-mediated cycloadditions, and strained hydrocarbons and molecules with electronically destabilizing features. Professor Vollhardt also is well known for his organic chemistry textbook, which has been translated into German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Serbian, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese.
K. Peter C. Vollhardt was born on March 7, 1946, in Madrid, Spain. He studied chemistry at the University of Munich, Germany, and at University College London, UK, where he received his Ph.D. in 1972 under the supervision of Peter J. Garratt. After postdoctoral research with Robert G. Bergman at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, USA, he was appointed Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1978 and to Full Professor of Chemistry in 1982.
Among other honors, Professor Vollhardt received the ACS Award in Organometallic Chemistry from the American Chemical Society (ACS) in 1987, the Otto Bayer Award by Bayer AG, Leverkusen, Germany, in 1990, the ACS Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award in 1991, and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy, in 2004.
Selected Publications
- A Terminal, Fluxional η4-Benzene Complex with a Thermally Accessible Triplet State is the Primary Photoproduct in the Intercyclobutadiene Haptotropism of (CpCo)phenylenes,
Thomas A. Albright, Rima Drissi, Vincent Gandon, Sander Oldenhof, Oluwakemi A. Oloba-Whenu, Robin Padilla, Hao Shen, K. Peter C. Vollhardt, Vincent Vreeken,
Chem. Eur. J. 2015, 21, 4546–4550.
DOI: 10.1002/chem.201406211 
Cobalt-Mediated Reactions of Oxazoles and Thiazoles with Alkynes,
K. Peter C. Vollhardt, Michael Eichberg, Dominique Leca,
Synthesis 2015, 47, 3412–3422.
DOI: 10.1055/s-0034-1378820- Organic Chemistry: Structure and Function,
K. Peter C. Vollhardt, Neil E. Schore,
W. H. Freeman, 2014.
ISBN: 978-1-4641-2027-5 - Organische Chemie (in German),
K. Peter C. Vollhardt, Neil E. Schore, Holger Butenschön (ed.),
Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 2011.
ISBN: 978-3-527-32754-6 - On the Nature of Nonplanarity in the [N]Phenylenes,
Daniel Holmes, Sriram Kumaraswamy, Adam J. Matzger, K. Peter C. Vollhardt,
Chem. Eur. J. 1999, 5, 3399–3412.
DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1521-3765(19991105)5:11<3399::AID-CHEM3399>3.0.CO;2-V - Synthesis and asymmetric reactivity of enantiomerically pure cyclopentadienylmetal complexes derived from the chiral pool,
Ronald L. Halterman, K. Peter C. Vollhardt,
Organometallics 1988, 7, 883–892.
DOI: 10.1021/om00094a015 - Hexaethynylbenzene,
Rainer Diercks, James C. Armstrong, Roland Boese, K. Peter C. Vollhardt,
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 1986, 25, 268–269.
DOI: 10.1002/anie.198602681 - Cobalt-Mediated [2+2+2]-Cycloadditions: A Maturing Synthetic Strategy,
K. Peter C. Vollhardt,
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 1984, 23, 539–556.
DOI: 10.1002/anie.198405393 - Transition-metal-catalyzed alkyne cyclizations. A cobalt-mediated total synthesis of dl-estrone,
Raymond L. Funk, K. Peter C. Vollhardt,
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1980, 102, 5253–5261.
DOI: 10.1021/ja00536a023
