Houghtons Donate $1 Million, Create New Chemistry Chair

Family and friends of Amory Houghton '21 have donated more than $1 million to the University to create the eleventh tenured professorship in the Chemistry Department, President Bok announced yesterday.

Jeremy Knowles, professor of Chemistry, will become the first Houghton Professor of Chemistry, Bok also announced.

Houghton is a former ambassador to France and chairman emeritus of Corning Glass Works.

Harvard Connection

From 1947 to 1953 Houghton served on the Board of Overseers at Harvard. He endowed a chair at the Divinity School in 1968, and his cousin Arthur A. Houghton Jr. '29 established the Houghton Library in 1942.

Dean Rosovsky and several senior faculty members chose Knowles for the post last spring but withheld announcement until yesterday.

"Knowles is a brilliant scientist," Dudley R. Herschbach, Baird Professor of Science and chairman of the Chemistry Department, said yesterday. "We thought he was the logical choice."

Knowles came to Harvard in 1974 after studying and teaching at Oxford University in England. He was also a visiting professor at Harvard and Yale before he decided to move to the U.S.

"I came here because the Chemistry Department at Harvard is the most exciting in the world," Knowles said.

Knowles specializes in bio-organic chemistry and teaches a section of Chemistry 20b. "Organic Chemistry." "I enjoy taking the methods of chemistry and using them to tackle exciting biological problems," he said.

The Houghton professorship is "a personal honor but even more a splendid gift to the University," Knowles said. He foresees no immediate changes in his current research and teaching activities.