James Mayer named the Charlotte Fitch Roberts Professor of Chemistry

James M. Mayer, newly named as the Charlotte Fitch Roberts Professor of Chemistry, is a scientist whose interests span the fields of inorganic, materials, bioinorganic, organometallic, and physical organic chemistry.

James M. Mayer, newly named as the Charlotte Fitch Roberts Professor of Chemistry, is a scientist whose interests span the fields of inorganic, materials, bioinorganic, organometallic, and physical organic chemistry.

James M. Mayer (Photo by Michael Marsland / Yale University)

The primary focus of Mayer’s research is on redox reactions that involve bond formation and bond cleavage, in particular the coupled transfers of protons and electrons. Proton/electron transfers are central to a variety of important processes — from fuel cells and solar fuels to bioenergetics, from organic free radical reactions and reactive oxygen species to enzymatic oxidations, and from the properties of nanoscale metal oxides to interfacial charge transfer.

A graduate of Harvard University, Mayer earned his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. After a two-year period as a visiting scientist at E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., he began his teaching career at the University of Washington. Mayer was named the Alvin L. and Verla R. Kwiram Professor of Chemistry there in 1999. He joined the Yale faculty in 2014 as professor of chemistry.

Mayer is a co-author of the book “Metal-Ligand Multiple Bonds.” He has contributed hundreds of research articles, book chapters, and reviews to edited volumes and journals. He has served as associate editor of the journal Inorganic Chemistry since 2001. Mayer has delivered invited lectures at universities and professional organizations throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.

The Yale professor has received research grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy, among other institutions. He is a fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Chemical Society.

Charlotte Fitch Roberts earned her doctorate in chemistry in 1894, as one of the first seven women to receive Ph.D. degrees from Yale. She became a professor at Wellesley College and was the author of the text “The Development and Present Aspects of Stereochemistry” (1896).

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