A role model for nonconformityĪs a teacher, Madix was greatly admired for his engaging Socratic style and rigorous teaching and research coaching. That professional milestone successfully secured, however, Madix would go on to become a senior member of the department, where he served as chair from 1983 to 1987. Due to his involvement in Vietnam War protesting, his promotion to full professor in 1977 involved an unusual and “tumultuous” tenure review by a special provost’s committee. His career, however, was not all smooth sailing. “It was very much like mixing oil and water, but Bob reduced the ‘surface tension’ that ultimately congealed us and from which arose a department now considered one of the best in the world.” “Bob was a key link that connected the old guard faculty with the ‘young Turks’ who followed him into the department, Bud Homsy, Curt Frank, and myself,” recalled colleague and friend Channing Robertson, a professor emeritus in the department. During this yearlong tenure between Berkeley and Stanford, Madix toured Europe’s leading labs and observed the emerging technological advances in surface chemistry. Upon earning his doctorate at Berkeley in 1964, Madix undertook postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute in Goettingen, Germany, courtesy of a National Science Foundation Fellowship. Madix was at the forefront of that pursuit. Nothing less than America’s industrial and technological leadership would hinge on science’s ability to understand and perfect catalysis. He was a standout baseball player as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois and lifelong guitar player who formed a band with several Stanford friends known as “Bullfish and the Crab.”Īs a doctoral candidate at Berkeley, learning under eventual Stanford professor Michel Boudart, Madix recognized the importance of catalysis in historical terms. It became a very popular tool for interrogating surface reactivity.” Creative and charismaticĪs a colleague and a teacher, Madix was described as charismatic, with a unique creativity and an insistence on excellence. “While relatively simple in concept, this was transformative in its impact. He did so in two ways, by choice of appropriate chemical probe molecules and by development of a new experimental technique he’d developed known as temperature programmed reaction spectroscopy – or TPRS,” recalled longtime colleague Curtis Frank, a professor emeritus in the Department of Chemical Engineering. “Bob was driven to understand the nature of surface-active sites. Madix sought to understand the fundamental science of how and why catalysts perform as they do, and how they can be enhanced. Catalysis is critical in chemical and energy production, pharmaceuticals, and other fields. Catalysts expedite or enhance chemical reactions between other materials without being consumed in the reactions themselves. Professionally, Madix was widely considered a “major force” in the surface chemistry of catalysis. He and Friend enjoyed an extended long-distance relationship and research partnership until he joined her at Harvard in 2005 as a senior research fellow in the Paulson School of Engineering. Madix joined the Stanford faculty in the fledgling Department of Chemical Engineering in 1965 where he would remain until 2004, when he moved to Harvard to be closer to his wife, the chemist Cynthia Friend. The cause was amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. “Bob” Madix, the Charles Lee Powell Professor, Emeritus, at the Stanford School of Engineering and highly respected professor of both chemical engineering and chemistry at Stanford and, later, Harvard, died at his home in Palo Alto, California, on May 25, 2023. The Catalyst for Collaborative Solutions.Technology Transfer/Technology Licensing.
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