John Waugh, emeritus chemistry professor, dies

John Waugh, emeritus chemistry professor, dies

MIT NEWS OFFICE

August 26, 2014

John S. Waugh, an MIT Institute Professor emeritus and professor emeritus in the Department of Chemistry, died Friday, Aug. 22, at the age of 85. Waugh was an authority in chemical physics, known internationally for his work in magnetic resonance.

Waughs pioneering work in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) made it possible to study the molecular structures of proteins involved in Alzheimers and Parkinsons diseases, diabetes, and many other disorders. NMR uses the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei to unravel the structures and dynamics of substances containing those nuclei. In NMR, the magnetic moments of atomic nuclei are stimulated with static and radiofrequency magnetic fields, and give rise to signals useful in a variety of applications from medical imaging to spectroscopy.

He was an extremely humble giant in the development of solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, says Sylvia Ceyer, head of MITs Department of Chemistry. His keen wit, razor-sharp intellect, and extraordinary sense of humor made him a treasured jewel amongst his colleagues.

Born in Willimantic, Conn., in 1929, Waugh received his bachelors degree from Dartmouth College in 1949, graduating summa cum laude with highest distinction in chemistry. He received his PhD in chemistry and physics from Caltech in 1953. He came to MIT as an instructor in chemistry that same year, and became assistant professor in 1955, associate professor in 1958, professor in 1962, and the Arthur Amos Noyes Professor of Chemistry in 1973.

As a grad student in the lab of Caltech chemistry professor Don Yost, Waugh built his first NMR system with a borrowed magnet and some World War II surplus electronics. When he arrived at MIT, NMR was already a valuable tool for the study of molecular structure but only for liquid samples.

In the 1960s Waugh developed a way to use NMR to study solids by applying a special sequence of sharp, intense pulses of radiofrequency power. This made NMR useful for analyzing things that dont dissolve in water, including proteins, nucleic acids (such as DNA), and some drugs. That technique eventually played a role in many of the past half-centurys discoveries in chemistry, physics, biology, and materials science; it is now one of sciences most widely used tools.

He basically invented the field of solid-state NMR when everyone else had left the field because they thought it was never going to work, says Robert Griffin, an MIT professor of chemistry who was a postdoc in Waughs lab in the 1970s. He made some incredible innovations that have led to many important scientific steps forward, and today solid-state NMR is a vibrant enterprise. Theres a huge number of people working in it, and its all because of things that happened in John Waughs lab.

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John Waugh, emeritus chemistry professor, dies