Cliff S. Hamilton Lectureship in Organic Chemistry

Cliff S. Hamilton was born in Blair, Nebraska, and received his B.S. degree from Monmouth College in Illinois in 1912. He was a student at the University of Illinois during 1914-1915 and served in the Chemical Warfare Service in 1917 during World War I. He served as an instructor in chemistry at Ohio Wesleyan University from 1917 to 1919. He began graduate work at the University of Minnesota but left for Northwestern University to work with W. Lee Lewis, and received his Ph.D. degree there in 1922. After a year as a research instructor in pharmacology at the University of Wisconsin in 1922-1923, he joined the faculty of the University of Nebraska, where he served as an assistant and associate professor from 1923 to 1927. From 1927 to 1929, he was an associate professor at Northwestern University.

In 1929, Hamilton returned to Nebraska as a full professor of chemistry, served as chairman of chemistry from 1939 to 1955, and also as dean of the graduate college during 1938-39 and 1940-41, retiring in 1957. He was a long-time consultant to Parke, Davis and Company in Detroit from 1927 until 1963. His research interests included the synthesis of organic compounds containing arsenic, antimony, or phosphorus, and the study of heterocyclic compounds utilizable as drugs. He helped develop Mapharsen, an arsenical formerly widely used against syphilis, and Camoquin, an antimalarial.

Hamilton was Chairman of the Nebraska Section in 1924- 26, Chairman of the Organic Division in 1940, and Chairman of the Divisional Officers Group of the American Chemical Society in 1940-41. He served on the Editorial Board of Organic Syntheses (1942-49), as Associate Editor of Organic Reactions, Volume 2, in 1944, and as an Associate Editor of Chemical Reviews from 1946-1948. His honors included an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Monmouth College in 1954, the Midwest Award of the St. Louis Section of the American Chemical Society in 1955, and the dedication of the new chemistry building at the University of Nebraska in his honor on October 25, 1970.