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| Howard Sherman | |
|---|---|
| Name | Howard Sherman |
| Birth date | 1948 |
| Birth place | Boston |
| Occupation | Chemist; Professor; Researcher |
| Known for | Studies of porphyrins, photochemistry, and materials chemistry |
| Alma mater | Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Harvard University |
| Awards | American Chemical Society awards; Guggenheim Fellowship |
Howard Sherman is an American chemist and materials scientist noted for pioneering studies in porphyrin chemistry, photophysics, and the synthesis of functional organic materials. Over a career spanning academic appointments and industrial collaborations, he contributed to the development of light-harvesting systems, supramolecular assemblies, and conjugated polymers. His work has intersected with researchers and institutions across United States and international networks including Royal Society of Chemistry partners.
Born in Boston in 1948, Sherman grew up in a family connected to the biomedical and technological communities of Cambridge, Massachusetts and Somerville, Massachusetts. He attended Phillips Academy for secondary education before matriculating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry with research experience in synthetic methods relevant to porphyrinoids. He pursued graduate studies at Harvard University under mentors working in physical organic chemistry and photochemistry, completing a Ph.D. that combined aspects of synthetic organic chemistry with spectroscopic characterization. Postdoctoral work included a stint at California Institute of Technology collaborating with groups focused on electron transfer and photoinduced processes.
Sherman began his independent career as an assistant professor at University of California, Berkeley before accepting a tenured position at Columbia University, where he established a research laboratory bridging synthetic chemistry and materials applications. He served as department chair during a period of expansion that involved coordination with funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy. He spent sabbaticals and visiting appointments at University of Oxford and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), engaging with researchers in photonics and supramolecular chemistry. Later in his career he transitioned to industry research partnerships with companies in the Silicon Valley and collaborated with national laboratories including Brookhaven National Laboratory on characterization of functional organic materials.
Throughout his appointments, Sherman taught undergraduate and graduate courses overlapping synthetic methods, spectroscopy, and materials design, advising doctoral students who later joined faculties at institutions like Princeton University, University of Chicago, and Yale University. He participated in editorial activities for journals published by the American Chemical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry and organized symposia at meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Materials Research Society (MRS).
Sherman’s research program emphasized the design, synthesis, and photophysical investigation of porphyrins, phthalocyanines, and related macrocycles as platforms for light-harvesting, catalysis, and electronic materials. He published studies elucidating ultrafast energy and electron transfer dynamics using techniques developed in labs at Stanford University and Johns Hopkins University, employing transient absorption spectroscopy and time-resolved fluorescence methods pioneered in collaboration with groups at MIT and Caltech. His work on covalent and noncovalent assemblies advanced understanding of exciton migration in organic semiconductors, linking concepts from researchers at IBM Research and Bell Laboratories.
Sherman contributed to the development of conjugated polymers and small-molecule chromophores for organic electronics, coordinating with teams at Nokia Research Center and Sony on device-relevant optimization. He investigated singlet oxygen generation and photodynamic action of porphyrinoids in contexts related to biomedical applications studied at Massachusetts General Hospital and Dana–Farber Cancer Institute. His group reported on template-directed synthesis, supramolecular host–guest complexes, and self-assembly strategies that informed subsequent efforts in molecular electronics and nanostructured materials at institutions such as University of California, Santa Barbara and Imperial College London.
Sherman’s collaborations extended into computational chemistry, integrating approaches from groups at Carnegie Mellon University and Argonne National Laboratory to model excited-state processes and charge-transfer pathways. He contributed chapters to edited volumes on organic photonics and served on advisory panels for consortia including the Optical Society of America (OSA) and the Electrochemical Society.
Sherman received recognition from professional societies and funding agencies for his contributions to chemistry and materials science. His honors include fellowships and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation and prizes conferred by the American Chemical Society divisions for organic chemistry and materials chemistry. He was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and served on panels for the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. He delivered named lectures at venues such as The Royal Institution and received visiting professorships from University of Tokyo and Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research.
Sherman married a clinical researcher affiliated with Harvard Medical School; they raised children who pursued careers in science and engineering, with family ties to alumni networks at MIT and Stanford University. Active in outreach, he supported programs linking university laboratories with secondary schools including Phillips Academy and community STEM initiatives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His legacy persists through a lineage of former students and collaborators now active at leading institutions including Columbia University, Princeton University, University of California, Berkeley, and international centers in Germany and Japan. Collections of his correspondence and laboratory notebooks have been donated to archival holdings at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and material samples are curated at repositories associated with Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Category:1948 births Category:Living people Category:American chemists Category:Materials scientists