Ed Solomon
Dr. Ed Solomon graduated from Rensselear Polytechnic Institute in 1968. He went on to receive his Ph.D. in chemistry from Princeton University in 1972 under the supervision of Don McClure. After postdoctoral appointments with McClure, Carl Ballhausen, and Harry B. Gray, Solomon started his independent career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an assistant professor. Since then, he is now the Monroe E. Spaght Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and Professor of Photon Science at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Collectively, his research traverses the fields of biochemistry, physical, theoretical, and inorganic chemistry by using spectroscopic means to define the electronic structure of transition metal complexes largely occurring in nature. This research has given way to new understanding of metals involved in biologically relevant electron transfer and metal-oxo complexes. His investigation of copper sites involved in oxygen activation along with his contributions on structure and function of non-heme iron molecules among other findings has given a unique approach to study nature’s proteins.