Fuson, Reynold C. (1895-1979) | University of Illinois Archives

Reynold Clayton Fuson (1895-1979) was associate (1927-28), assistant professor (1928-30), associate professor (1931-32), professor (1932-63), and professor emeritus (1963-79) of chemistry at the University of Illinois (UI). He was widely respected as an educator and chemist, noted for originating the principle of vinyology.

Fuson was born in Wakefield, Illinois, on June 1, 1895, to parents Nancy Jane and John A. Fuson. He was certified as a teacher at the Central Normal College in Danville, Indiana, in 1914. He earned a bachelor's degree from the Montana State University (1920), a master's from the University of California, Berkeley (1921), and a PhD from the University of Minnesota (1924) in organic chemistry. Fuson held a postdoctoral appointment at Harvard University with E. P. Kohler (1924-25) and worked as an instructor (1926) before joining the Department of Chemistry at UI in 1927. He remained at UI for more than three decades before retiring in 1963. Over the course of his career, he published 285 articles and wrote five textbooks, including The Systematic Identification of Organic Compounds (coauthored with R. L. Shriner and D. Y. Curtin). He was also a member of the editorial boards of Organic Syntheses and the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Fuson's research interests and accomplishments included, "the enunciation of the principle of vinylogy, elucidation of the conjugate addition of Grignard reagents to unsaturated carbonyls compounds, and the discovery of stable enols and enediols of sterically hindered molecules" ("About Reynold C. Fuson"). He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and recipient of the American Chemical Society (ACS) William H. Nichols Medal (1953).

Following his retirement from UI, he taught at the University of Nevada (1963-64). He died in Breslau, Germany, on August 4, 1979.

Sources:

"About Reynold C. Fuson (1895-1979)," Department of Chemistry (UIUC), accessed May 6, 2020, https://chemistry.illinois.edu/newsroom/events/lectures/r-c-fuson-visiting-professors-organic-chemistry/about-reynold-c-fuson-1895.

"Fuson, Reynold C. (1895â??1979)," Department of Chemistry (UIUC), accessed May 6, 2020, https://chemistry.illinois.edu/spotlight/faculty/fuson-reynold-c-1895-1979.

Wikipedia, s.v. "Reynold C. Fuson," accessed May 6, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynold_C._Fuson.