Alan G. MacDiarmid

Alan G. MacDiarmid begins the interview by discussing his childhood in New Zealand and goes on to describe how two books, both chemistry-related, sparked his interest in chemistry. Due to economic hardship, MacDiarmid juggled working and attending the University of New Zealand part time to complete his bachelor's and master's degree. Denied a scholarship to study in England, MacDiarmid came to the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a Fulbright Scholar to study inorganic chemistry. After obtaining a M.S. in 1952 and a Ph.D. in 1953, MacDiarmid left Wisconsin and finally got to fulfill his dream of studying at the University of Cambridge under H. J. Emeleus. Focusing on inorganic chemistry, MacDiarmid obtained a Ph.D. in 1955 and accepted a position at the University of Pennsylvania after a brief stint as assistant lecturer in the University of St. Andrews. MacDiarmid did his most seminal work at Penn, where he remained for fifty-plus year and is still a faculty member. His early research in America was funded by Cold War related projects overseen by government funding agencies such as the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Office of Naval Research. Then on a visit to Japan, MacDiarmid serendipitously met with Hideki Shirakawa, who was doing similar research on conductive metals. Over tea they discussed their work, and MacDiarmid invited Shirakawa to Philadelphia. It was there, collaborating with another Penn faculty member, Alan Heeger, that the three published influential works that led to the discovery of conducting polymers and their shared Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000. MacDiarmid, an inorganic chemist, emphasized the importance of inter-disciplinary research with Shirakawa, an organic chemist; and Heeger, a physicist. MacDiarmid describes how interdisciplinarity can advance current research and promote innovation. He concludes the interview by suggesting possible future research directions and the need to decrease dependency on fossil fuels.

University of St. Andrews

1955 - 1956 Assistant Lecturer

University of Pennsylvania

1955 - 1956 Instructor in Chemistry

University of Pennsylvania

1956 - 1961 Assistant Professor

University of Pennsylvania

1961 - 1964 Associate Professor

University of Pennsylvania

1964 - 1988 Professor

University of Pennsylvania

1988 - 2007 Blanchard Professor of Chemistry

University of Texas at Dallas

2002 - 2007 James Von Ehr Chair of Science and Technology, Professor of Chemistry and Physics

Jilin University, China

2004 - 2007 Professor of Chemistry

Cyrus Mody

Cyrus Mody is an assistant professor of history at Rice University. Prior to that position he was the manager of the Nanotechnology and Innovation Studies programs in the Center for Contemporary History and Policy at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. He has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical and materials engineering from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in science and technology studies from Cornell. He was the 2004–2005 Gordon Cain Fellow at CHF before becoming a program manager. Mody has published widely on the history and sociology of materials science, instrumentation, and nanotechnology.