Richard Royce Schrock (born January 4,
1945) is an American chemist and Nobel laureate recognized
for his contributions to the olefin metathesis reaction used in organic chemistry. Born in Berne, Indiana, Schrock went to Mission Bay High School in San Diego, California. He holds a B.A. (1967) from the University of
California, Riverside and a Ph. D. (1971)
from Harvard University under the
direction of John A. Osborn (fr) Following his PhD, Schrock carried out postdoctoral research at
the University of Cambridge with
Lord Jack Lewis. In 1972, he was hired
by DuPont, where he worked at the Experimental
Station in Wilmington, Delaware in the group of George Parshall. He joined the faculty of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in 1975 and became
full professor in 1980. He
has held his current post, the Frederick G. Keyes Professor of Chemistry, at
MIT since 1989. Schrock is a member of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences, National Academy of
Sciences and was elected to the Board of
Overseers of Harvard University in 2007. He is co-founder and member of the
board of a Swiss-based company focused on the development and application of
proprietary metathesis catalyst. In 2018, Schrock joined the
faculty of his alma mater, the University of California, Riverside. He cited his interest in mentoring junior faculty and
students. “My experience as an undergraduate at UCR in research in the
laboratory of James Pitts and the quality of the classes in chemistry prepared
me for my Ph.D. experience at Harvard. I look forward to returning to UCR
for a few years to give back some of what it gave to me,” Schrock said. In
2005, Schrock received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, with Robert H. Grubbs and Yves
Chauvin, for his work in the area of olefin
metathesis, an organic synthesis technique. Schrock was the first to elucidate the
structure and mechanism of so-called 'black box' olefin metathesis catalysts.
Initial work at DuPont involved the synthesis of tantalum alkylidenes,
alkylidenes being a crucial resting state in the catalytic cycle of olefin
metathesis. His work at MIT has led to a detailed understanding of a group of
molybdenum alkylidenes and alkylidynes which are active olefin and alkyne
methathesis catalysts, respectively. Schrock has done much work to demonstrate
that metallacyclobutanes are the key intermediate in olefin
metathesis, with metallacyclobutadienes being the key
intermediate in alkyne methathesis. Many supporting ligands have been explored
in efforts to better understand the nature of the single molecule catalysts,
most notably 2,6-diisopropylphenylimido and adamantylimido, as well as various
tert-butyl alkoxides with varying degrees of fluorination. The prototypical
Schrock catalyst is (R"O)2(R'N)Mo(CHR) where R = tert-butyl, R'
= 2,6-diisopropylphenyl, and R" = C(Me)(CF3)2. Such
catalysts are now commercially available from such major suppliers as
Sigma-Aldrich, and are used frequently in synthetic applications of olefin
metathesis. Schrock's work is ongoing with goals of furthering the
understanding of metathesis selectivity, developing new catalyst architectures,
as well as projects outside of metathesis, such as elucidating the mechanism
of dinitrogen fixation and
developing single molecule catalysts which form ammonia from dinitrogen,
mimicking the activity of nitrogenase enzymes
in biology.