{{Short description|American chemist (1932–2024)}} {{about||the American statistician and sociologist|Stuart A. Rice (statistician)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Stuart A. Rice | image = <!--(filename only)--> | image_size = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = Stuart Alan Rice | birth_date = {{Birth date|1932|1|6}} | birth_place = New York City, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|2024|12|22|1932|1|6}} | death_place = Chicago, IL, US | citizenship = | fields = Theoretical chemistry | workplaces = The University of Chicago | alma_mater = Bronx High School of Science, Brooklyn College, Harvard University, Yale University | doctoral_advisor = | academic_advisors = | doctoral_students = | notable_students = | known_for = | author_abbrev_bot = | author_abbrev_zoo = | influences = | influenced = | awards = {{no wrap|ACS Award in Pure Chemistry (1963)<br />Peter Debye Award (1985)<br />National Medal of Science (1999)<br /> Wolf Prize (2011)}} | signature = <!--(filename only)--> | signature_alt = | footnotes = | spouse = }}
'''Stuart Alan Rice''' (January 6, 1932 – December 22, 2024) was an American theoretical chemist and physical chemist.<ref name="one">[http://chemistry.uchicago.edu/fac/rice.shtml Prof. Rice - Chemistry Department - University of Chicago] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090529032253/http://chemistry.uchicago.edu/fac/rice.shtml |date=2009-05-29 }}</ref> He was well known as a theoretical chemist who also performed experimental research, having spent much of his career working in multiple areas of physical chemistry. He was the Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. During his tenure at the University of Chicago, Rice trained more than 100 Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers.<ref>[http://phdtree.org/scholar/rice-stuart-a/ List of PhDs and Postdocs trained by Professor Stuart A. Rice] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150216052925/http://phdtree.org/scholar/rice-stuart-a/ |date=2015-02-16 }}</ref> He received the National Medal of Science in 1999.<ref name="one"/>
==Education and career== Stuart Rice attended the Bronx High School of Science,<ref name="two">{{cite journal | last=Rice | first=Stuart A. | title=A Fortunate Life in Physical Chemistry | journal=Annual Review of Physical Chemistry | publisher=Annual Reviews | volume=59 | issue=1 | year=2008 | issn=0066-426X | doi=10.1146/annurev.physchem.59.032607.093731 | pages=1–26| pmid=17669016 | bibcode=2008ARPC...59....1R | doi-access= }}</ref> received his bachelor's degree in 1952 from Brooklyn College, and earned his master's and doctorate from Harvard University in 1954 and 1955, respectively. He was almost unable to attend graduate school due to contracting tuberculosis, but was cured of the disease through an experimental treatment of isoniazid and streptomycin.<ref name="two"/> He remained at Harvard as a junior fellow for three years, although he spent the last two years of the fellowship doing research work at Yale University's chemistry department. After the fellowship, he joined the faculty of The University of Chicago in 1957, where he remained until his death.<ref name="one"/><ref name="two"/>
Rice served the university in a wide variety of capacities during his fifty-seven year tenure. He served as the director of the James Franck Institute (the university's center for physical chemistry and condensed matter physics) from 1961 to 1967. He was chairman of the department of chemistry from 1971 to 1976 and was dean of the physical sciences division from 1981 to 1995.<ref name="one"/> He served as dean for the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago from October 2006 through October 2010 and as interim president of the institute from October 2010 to April 2013.
In addition to his work at the university, he was on the board of governors at Tel Aviv University,<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.tau.ac.il/bog/members.html |title=Program Members of The Board Of Governors – Tel Aviv University<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=7 September 2007 |archive-date=18 August 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070818035942/http://www.tau.ac.il/bog/members.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> served as editor for the journals ''Chemical Physics Letters''<ref>[http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaleditorialboard.cws_home/505707/editorialboard?navopenmenu=-2 Chemical Physics Letters – Elsevier<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> and ''Advances in Chemical Physics'',<ref>[https://archive.today/20121218000440/http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/bookhome/93517918/ProductInformation.html?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 Wiley Interscience]</ref> and co-authored several physical chemistry textbooks with Stephen Berry and John Ross.<ref>[http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780195105896 OUP: UK General Catalogue<!-- Bot generated title -->] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929120558/http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780195105896 |date=2007-09-29 }}</ref>
==Research== Rice began his scientific career as a high school student and published on this work.<ref>Levine M, Rice SA. 1950. Effect of folic acid, aminopterin and vitamin K on growth of roots in Allium cepa. Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med. 74:310–12 </ref> He completed his doctoral dissertation under Paul Doty, contributing to the then-emerging field of DNA research;<ref name="two"/> the project shared both experimental and theoretical components, which became a hallmark of his later work.<ref name="two"/>
During his time at Yale, Stuart Rice began to study the transport properties of liquids.<ref name="two"/> He helped to determine the properties of liquid noble gases and methane, while also exploring the theoretical background of transport in liquids as well, comparing the results to simulations of Lennard-Jones fluids.<ref name="two"/>
Following this work he helped to develop the theory of electronic excitations (excitons) in molecular crystals and liquids, eventually moving into the area of radiationless molecular transitions, beginning his own experimental work after the development of the Bixon-Jortner model, while also working with collaborators on extending the theoretical model of these transitions.<ref name="two"/> This research led him to investigate the effects of quantum chaos on excited molecules, and to couple the developing model of transitions with quantum chaos in order to attain control of the transition of excited molecules. This led to the field of coherent control, quantum control through laser excitation, which was developed by other scientists at the University of Chicago.<ref name="two"/>
At the same time, he also began work on understanding the electrical properties of liquid metals, where the lack of translational orders frustrated attempts to understand their electronic band structure.<ref name="two"/> The discrepancy between the dielectric results of reflectivity and ellipsometry data of liquid mercury led to work on the nature of conductivity at the liquid-vapor surface of liquid metal, ultimately showing that the existence of ion inhomogeneities at the interface led to electronic changes in the bulk liquid that persist for several atomic diameters into a liquid.<ref name="two"/>
Smaller research topics that Rice published on include work on the chemistry of water, the theory of freezing liquids, the properties of monolayers on liquids, and confined colloidal systems, amongst others.<ref name="two"/>
==Personal life and death== Rice was famous at the University of Chicago for eating lunch almost every weekday at the university's Quadrangle Club restaurant (a faculty club), where he dined over 9,000 times. Rice was known to sit at the head of the chemistry table, not because he was the most senior member of the department, but because he was very tall.<ref>[http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0506/features/club.shtml The University of Chicago Magazine<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
Rice was married to Marian Coopersmith from 1952 until her death in 1994.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fleming |first1=Graham R. |last2=David |first2=Oxtoby |title=Tribute to Stuart A. Rice |journal=The Journal of Physical Chemistry |volume=99 |issue=9 |date=2 March 1995 |pages=2413–2434 |doi=10.1021/j100009a600 }}</ref> From 1997 to his own death, Rice was married to Ruth O'Brien. He died on December 22, 2024, at the age of 92.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Stuart Rice Obituary (1932 – 2024) - Legacy Remembers |url=https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/legacyremembers/stuart-rice-obituary?id=57078124 |access-date=2024-12-24 |website=Legacy.com}}</ref>
==Honors and awards== Rice was awarded the National Medal of Science, the highest scientific prize awarded in the United States, in 1999. He was awarded the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 2011, along with Krzysztof Matyjaszewski and Ching Tang.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.wolffund.org.il/cat.asp?id=15&cat_title=CHEMISTRY |title=The 2011 Wolf Prize in Chemistry |access-date=16 February 2011 |archive-date=17 May 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070517203044/http://www.wolffund.org.il/cat.asp?id=15&cat_title=CHEMISTRY |url-status=dead }}</ref> He was a Fellow of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences<ref>{{Cite web |title=Stuart A. Rice |url=http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/members/51264.html |access-date=2022-05-12 |website=www.nasonline.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Stuart Alan Rice |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/stuart-alan-rice |access-date=2022-05-12 |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |language=en}}</ref> and a member of the American Philosophical Society.<ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Stuart+Alan+Rice&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2022-05-12 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref> In 1970, Rice was awarded the Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, the nation’s oldest prize for undergraduate teaching, a highly esteemed faculty award at The University of Chicago.<ref name="one"/>
==Impact== Over the course of his long career Rice has shaped much debate on theoretical physical chemistry. He is cited on the National Medal of Science "for changing the very nature of modern physical chemistry through his research, teaching and writing, using imaginative approaches to both experiment and theory that have inspired a new generation of scientists."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nsf.gov/od/nms/recip_details.cfm?recip_id=290 |title=The President's National Medal of Science: Recipient Details | NSF - National Science Foundation |publisher=Nsf.gov |date=2000-03-14 |access-date=2020-02-22}}</ref> With over 100 doctoral students to his credit, Stuart Rice has had a great impact on the field of physical chemistry simply through the number of research scientists he has trained.<ref>[http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/050526/maclean.shtml Rice, Straus to receive Maclean<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> Theoretical chemist David Tannor, who is the Hermann Mayer Professorial Chair in the department of chemical physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, did his post-doc work with Stuart Rice and David W. Oxtoby at the University of Chicago.<ref name="auto3a">[http://www.weizmann.ac.il/chemphys/tannor/home "David Tannor's Home Page; Highlights of Research,"] Weizmann Institute of Science, Department of Chemical Physics.</ref><ref name="autoa">{{Cite web|url=http://www.israel21c.org/can-safed-become-israels-aspen/|title=Can Safed become Israel's Aspen?|first=Sharon|last=Kanon|date=June 15, 2007|website=Israel21c}}</ref><ref name="auto2a">{{Cite web|url=https://www.uscibooks.com/tannor.htm|title=Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, A Time Dependent Perspective, David Tannor|website=www.uscibooks.com|access-date=22 February 2020|archive-date=19 November 2002|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021119014530/https://www.uscibooks.com/tannor.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> Paul Alivisatos, president of University of Chicago, who studied with Rice as an undergraduate, remembers his teaching as "exact and illuminating and inspiring. As long as he continued to speak, he rendered his difficult subject with simplicity and clarity."<ref>{{Cite web |title=A teacher’s legacy |url=https://mag.uchicago.edu/university-news/teachers-legacy |access-date=2025-06-25 |website=mag.uchicago.edu |language=en}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist|30em}}
==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20090529032253/http://chemistry.uchicago.edu/fac/rice.shtml Stuart Rice Profile] * [https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.RICESA Guide to the Stuart Alan Rice Papers 1947-2004] at the [https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/scrc/ University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center]
{{Winners of the National Medal of Science|chemistry}} {{Wolf Prize in Chemistry}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rice, Stuart A.}} Category:1932 births Category:2024 deaths Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Category:Jewish American scientists Category:Jewish chemists Category:Argonne National Laboratory people Category:National Medal of Science laureates Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Yale University alumni Category:Scientists from New York City Category:American physical chemists Category:American theoretical chemists Category:Tel Aviv University people Category:University of Chicago faculty Category:Wolf Prize in Chemistry laureates Category:American academic journal editors Category:Brooklyn College alumni Category:The Bronx High School of Science alumni Category:Members of the Royal Irish Academy Category:21st-century American Jews Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society