Robert W. Murray

Murray, Robert W. professor of chemistry, died March 13. He was 83 and had been ill for several weeks. He joined the faculty at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 1968 after a very successful tenyear career at Bell Laboratories. He was born in Brockton, Mass. and received degrees from Brown University, Providence, R.I., Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, and Yale University, New Haven, CT, where he completed his PhD degree. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1951-54 and later in the U.S. Naval Reserve as a Lieutenant Commander. During the 1960s he and his family lived in the town of Warren, N.J. where he served as mayor, president of the board of health and a member of the board of education. At UMSL, Dr. Murray was very active in campus and University of Missouri System affairs and was the prominent senior faculty member on the campus in those early years of the institution. He served as chair of the chemistry department from 1975 to 1980. In 1981 he was the first chemist in the UM System and only the second on the St. Louis campus to be appointed Curators' Professor. He was a visiting scholar in Karlsruhe, Germany and Cork, Ireland. He received numerous awards including the American Chemical Society St. Louis Award in 1974, the American Chemical Society Midwest Award in 1989, the University of Missouri Presidential Award for Research and Creativity in 1990 and the I. H. Weldon Medal of the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association in 1994. In May 2001, Professor Murray was presented with the St. Louis Academy of Sciences Peter H. Raven Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Murray was well known for his research in the area of oxidation chemistry, particularly that involving ozone, singlet oxygen, hydrotrioxides and dioxiranes. His many contributions have helped demonstrate the relevance of oxidation chemistry to environmental and health issues. Dr. Murray's more recent work centered on the chemistry of dioxiranes. He devised an experimental procedure for producing solutions of methyldioxiranes. Dimethyldioxirane, DMD, referred to in the literature as Murray's Reagent, is a remarkable reagent and has found substantial applications by others around the world. He received federal funding for his research at UMSL every year from the time he arrived in 1968, and gave approximately 300 invited lectures in the U.S. and Europe. Over the years, he was known as a compassionate and understanding teacher of organic chemistry to graduate students, chemistry majors and health science majors. Dr. Murray assumed Curators' Professor Emeritus status in 1999. He is survived by his wife of more than 60 years Claire (nee Murphy), six children, Kathleen (Jim), Robert (Sue), Lynn (Richard), Elizabeth (Gary), Daniel (Dawn) and Padraic (Lila), 15 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren. His son, William, precedes him in death. Although the Murray family was a large one, and Bob was very active and successful professionally, he and Claire were active in politics and were very generous with their time. They volunteered for many activities, including hosting visiting students and helping neighbors. Bob and Claire were very proud of their Irish heritage. Services: Mass of the Resurrection will be held at St. John Bosco Church, 12934 Marine Ave, St. Louis, MO 63146, Saturday, March 17, at 1:00 p.m. Interment: Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery on Monday, March 19, procession will leave OrtmannStipanovich Funeral Home, 12444 Olive Blvd., Creve Coeur, at 9:00 am. In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to St. John Bosco Church, or The Robert W. Murray Lecture Series, c/o Lawrence Barton, Dept. of Chemistry, UMSL, 315 Benton Hall, St. Louis, MO 63121.