The College’s only living Nobel laureate, Sharpless recently added a new award to his collection: a Priestley Medal, the American Chemical Society’s highest honor. No big deal: “I am just a chemist who’s spent my life trying to make it possible for chemists to do better chemistry,” he says. Sharpless was recognized for his work in “click chemistry,” which describes a specific class of reactions that all “click into place.” The scientist, who coined the term with his wife, spoke on campus in October as part of Dartmouth’s 250th anniversary. Sharpless won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2001.
