PETER WAGNER DIES

Abstract

Peter J. Wagner, 70, an accomplished photochemist, professor of chemistry emeritus at Michigan State University, and former associate editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society , died on Aug. 6. Born in Chicago on Christmas Day in 1938, Wagner graduated from Loyola University, in Chicago, with a B.S. in math and science in 1960. He earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1963, conducting research on free-radical chemistry under the direction of Cheves Walling. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow with George S. Hammond at California Institute of Technology. Wagner joined the chemistry faculty at Michigan State in 1965, where he gained international acclaim for his research on radical pair and biradical intermediates in photochemical reactions. In 1968, Wagner received an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship and was tenured as an associate professor. He was promoted to a full professor in 1970 and named a University Distinguished Professor in 1998. Before retiring last ...