Thomas C. Bruice

Thomas C. Bruice died on February 15 from complications following a stroke. He was born on August 25, 1925 in Los Angeles. He left high school (Manual Arts) after his junior year to serve in the U.S Navy (1943-1946), assigned as a medic with the Marines in the South Pacific. After his discharge, he attended Los Angeles City College. Bruice earned his B.S. (1950) and his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry (1954) at USC and was a post-doctoral fellow at UCLA. He was a professor at Yale University School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Cornell University. In 1964 he resigned his position at Cornell, telling the President of the University that he would stay if he would get rid of the snow and build him a surfing beach. His search for a place to surf led him (along with his Cornell graduate students and post-doctoral fellows) to the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he joined the faculty and surfed well into his seventies. Bruice was one of the fathers of bioorganic chemistry, applying the principles of physical organic chemistry to understand the mechanisms of biochemical reactions. He was elected to both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Guggenheim Fellow. Among Bruice's many awards were the National Academy of Sciences Award for Innovative Research in the Chemical Sciences, the Linus Pauling Medal, The Tolman Medal, the Repligen Medal for the Chemistry of Biological Processes, the Alfred Bader Medal for Bioorganic Chemistry, and the James Flack Norris Award in Physical-Organic Chemistry. He had over 600 publications and Science Watch listed him among "The World's 50 Most Cited Chemists between 1984-1991". He is survived by his wife of 48 years, Paula Yurkanis Bruice, and his children Tom (Corinne), Ann, Carl (Lynn), Meghan Thomas (Mark), Kenton (Donna), Alec (Whitney), and 13 grandchildren. A celebration of his life will be held at a later date. Donations in his memory may be made to the Adventures in Caring Foundation (1528 Chapala Street, SB 93101) or to The Ensemble Theatre Company (P.O. Box 2307, SB 93120).