William von Eggers Doering

Who was William von Eggers Doering?

William von Eggers Doering was a Professor Emeritus at Harvard University and the former Chair of its Chemistry Department. Prior to joining the Faculty at Harvard, he was a member of the Chemistry Faculties of Columbia University and Yale.

He is known in the field of organic chemistry for his work on quinine total synthesis with Robert Burns Woodward. Having published his first scientific paper in 1939 and his last in 2008, he holds the rare distinction of having authored scholarly articles in eight different decades. In 1990, he received the Robert A. Welch Award in Chemistry and in 1989, he received the "James Flack Norris Award in Physical Organic Chemistry" of the American Chemical Society.

Some of his discoveries include the structure elucidation of the tropylium cation, the discovery of dichlorocarbene, bullvalene and fulvalene and the discovery of the mechanism of the Baeyer–Villiger oxidation.