Corwin Hansch
Corwin Herman Hansch (October 6, 1918 – May 8, 2011) was a Professor of Chemistry at Pomona College in California. He became known as the 'father of computer-assisted molecule design.' Early life and childhood. He was born on October 6, 1918 in Kenmare, North Dakota. Education. He earned a B.S. from the University of Illinois in 1940 and a Ph.D. from New York University in 1944. Career. Hansch worked on the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago and as a group leader at DuPont Nemours in Richland, Washington. In February 1946 he received an academic position at  Pomona College. Hansch taught Organic Chemistry for many years at Pomona College, and was known for giving complex lectures without using notes. His course in Physical Bio-Organic Medicinal Chemistry was ground-breaking at an undergraduate level. Hansch may be best known as the father of the concept of quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR), the quantitative correlation of the physicochemical properties of molecules with their biological activities. He is also noted for the Hansch equation, which is used in Research Interests: Organic Chemistry; Interaction of organic chemicals with living organisms, Quantitative Structure Activity Relationships (QSAR). Death. He died of pneumonia  on May 8, 2011 in Claremont, California at 92. Notes. His research group at Pomona College worked on QSAR studies and in building and expanding the database of chemical and physical data as C-QSAR and Bioloom. His postgraduate associates were Rajni Garg, Cynthia R. D. Selassie, Suresh Babu Mekapati, and Alka Kurup. The Journal of Computer-Aided Molecular Design carried four obituaries (as found in a Pubmed personal subject [ps] search). Among his students at Pomona was Jennifer Doudna, co-recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Doudna has credited Hansch as an influence. Bibliography. A preliminary search  in WorldCat and in PubMed, two among many relevant bibliographic and citation indexes, shows the following: The Pomona College Archives holds reprints of Hansch’s articles published between 1962 and 2009 in addition to other materials.