Call Number:

09.002

Repository:

Science History Institute Archives

Extent:

1 linear feet (1 box; ca. 138 print photographs; transparencies)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Collection or item title, Othmer Library of Chemical History, Science History Institute..

Date:

1960s-2000 (inclusive) and 1960s-1970s (bulk)

Form:

Photographs, Photograph collections, and Archival materials

Abstract:

Photographs depicting the colleagues of Robert Harza Burris, a professor of Biochemistry and pioneer in the use of mass spectrometry to study biological nitrogen fixation.

Robert H. Burris earned his B.S. in Chemistry from South Dakota State University in 1936 and studied under Perry W. Wilson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he earned his Ph.D. in Bacteriology in 1940. Burris subsequently undertook a year of postdoctoral research in Physical Chemistry at Columbia University, working under Harold Urey, before returning to the University of Wisconsin. As a professor of Biochemistry, Burris continued to research biological nitrogen fixation using mass spectrometry and worked with students on biological N2 fixation, photosynthesis, and respiratory enzymes. Burris was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society and was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1979. In 1984, he retired as a professor, but continued to research and publish throughout his retirement. Robert Harza Burris died in 2010.

For a more detailed inventory, please view this record in our library catalog: https://othmerlib.sciencehistory.org/record=b1071956~S6

This collection, donated by Burris, consists of slides of chemists and biochemists from the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA held in 1975. The collection also includes various photographs of Burris' colleagues assembled over the course of his career and primarily dating from the 1960s and 1970s. Notably, the collection does not include any photographs of Robert H. Burris himself.