Professor Emeritus Philip Eaton (PhD '60) of the University of Chicago, widely recognized as the founder of cubane synthesis, died on July 21. He was 87.
Eaton was a world leader in synthesizing non-natural products to probe molecular structure effects. Known for his intellectual curiosity and bold research that pushed the limits of our understanding, he was the first to successfully synthesize a carbon cube and initiate cubane synthesis in 1964, an act the chemistry world had thought impossible until Eaton's discoveries.
Born in New York in 1936, Eaton received his A.B. from Princeton in 1957 and completed his doctoral work at Harvard under organic chemist Peter Yates in 1960. While there, he published his first pioneering paper, making the seminal observation that Lewis acids accelerate the Diels-Alder reaction, the results of which paved the way for innumerable advances in organic chemistry, actively expanding the impact and possibilities of the field.
Informing the department of his passing, professor Viresh Rawal wrote:
Phil joined the Chicago faculty in 1962 and embarked on research problems that were considered impossible to crack. Notably, he set out to synthesize the hydrocarbon cubane, a platonic solid that was considered to be too strained to survive. He not only succeeded in the effort but did so using elegant and innovative chemistry that is discussed in leading textbooks on chemical synthesis. He went on to make numerous seminal contributions to the synthesis of a variety of "supranatural" compounds and, in the process, made foundational contributions to synthetic chemistry.
In addition to his innovations, Eaton is remembered as a caring and generous educator. Former President of Clark University and one of the first African-Americans to earn a Ph.D. Thomas W Cole was one of the first graduate students at UChicago to work with Eaton. As he reflected in an interview in 2006, Cole said: "He turned out to be a very good major professor, had my interests at heart, and really wanted to see me continue to do well".
Rawal echoes this sentiment, adding, "Phil was an inspiring teacher to thousands of students and a research mentor to dozens of graduate students and postdoctoral associates. He will be greatly missed."