Michael Hanack
Georg Michael Hanack (22 October 1931 – 6 November 2019) was a professor of chemistry at the University of Tübingen in Germany. Life and career. Hanack was born in Luckenwalde on 22 October 1931. From 1949 to 1954 he studied chemistry, philosophy and economics at the universities of Freiburg, Bonn and Tübingen, and obtained his Diplomchemiker degree in 1954. In 1957, he completed his thesis under the supervision of Walter Hückel on "Solvolyse der Toluolsulfonate der stereoisomeren cis-alpha-Hydrindanole und Beiträge zur Messmethodik" ("Solvolysis of toluenesulfonates of stereoisomeric cis-alpha-hydrindanoles and contributions to the methodology of kinetic  measurements"). After being an assistant to Hückel from 1957 to 1958, Hanack conducted his own research on topics such as organofluorine chemistry, organic chemistry and stereochemistry. After his habilitation in 1961, he was granted the title Privatdozent when he was only 31 years old, at that time one of the youngest Privatdozenten in Germany. He was promoted to Professor extraordinarius at the University of Tübingen in 1968 and was offered the chair as professor of organic chemistry and head of the department at the Saarland University in 1970. In April 1975 he returned to the University of Tübingen as professor  of organic chemistry, succeeding Eugen Müller. He was there also dean of the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy from 1981 to 1983, and head of the Department of Chemistry from 1995 to 2001. From 2001 to 2019 he was Professor emeritus and continued his research work. Research fields. Hanack researched: Working group. In his function as doctoral advisor, he had more than 230 doctoral students in addition to many postdoctoral students and guest researchers who studied in his laboratory.