Thomas Barton

Thomas J Barton

Position
  • Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Chemistry

Contact

Education

  • Ph.D., Organic Chemistry, University of Florida, 1967
  • National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow, Ohio State University, 1967

Thomas J. Barton, distinguished professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences, was born and raised in Texas. He received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the University of Florida in 1967 and worked as an NIH postdoctoral fellow at Ohio State before joining the Iowa State faculty in that same year. Professor Barton has been a National Academy of Sciences exchange scientist in the Soviet Union, a NATO exchange scientist in France, a JSPS lecturer in Japan, and a professeur d'echange at the University de Montpellier. In 1981 he was appointed to the editorial board of the new ACS journal Organometallics. Professor Barton was selected as the recipient of the Kipping Award in organosilicon chemistry in 1982; in 1983 was honored to be the second recipient of the Iowa Governor's Science Teaching Medal; and in 1989 received the Outstanding Scientific Accomplishment in Materials Chemistry (DOE Materials Sciences Research Competition). He received an additional award from the Federal Laboratory Consortium as Laboratory Director of the Year for Technology Transfer, 2003. In 1988 he became Director of the Ames Laboratory (U. S. Department of Energy). He is the recipient of the American Chemical Society's 1995 Midwest Award. In 1998 he was appointed Director of ISU's Institute of Physical Research & Technology, a consortium of 11 science and technology research centers. He served as Director of the Ames Lab from 1989 through 2007. In 2008 he served as Interim Director of the Iowa Energy Center.  In 2012 he was elected to the presidential succession of the American Chemical Society and served as President the year of 2014.