Celebrating RACI and Academy of Science Awards

Curt Wentrup was educated at the University of Copenhagen (Cand. Scient. 1966; D.Sc. 1976) and the Australian National University (Ph.D. 1969). After post-doctoral periods with Hans Dahn (Lausanne), W. M. Jones (Gainesville, FL) and Maitland Jones, Jr (Princeton), he held an assistant professorship at the Université de Lausanne, Switzerland, and a professorship at the Universität Marburg, Germany, before returning to Australia in 1985 as Professor and Chair of Organic Chemistry and head of the organic chemistry section at the University of Queensland, where he is now Emeritus Professor. He has published about 400 research papers, reviews, and books on reactive intermediates and unusual molecules using photochemistry, flash vacuum thermolysis, and microwave-induced reactions, particularly of nitrenes, carbenes, nitrile ylides and nitrile imines, cyanates, isocyanates and nitrile oxides and their thio analogues, and the chemistry of cumulenes. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and a recipient of the Centenary Medal of the Australian Commonwealth for research in organic and physical chemistry, the David Craig Medal of the Academy of Science for research in chemistry, the Arthur Birch Medal of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute for excellence in organic chemistry, and an honorary doctorate from the Université de Pau, France. He collaborates strongly with groups in Europe, Japan, and China and has recently held visiting professorships in Pau (France) and Hiroshima (Japan).