Ray Freeman

Ray Freeman FRS is a British chemist. He won the Royal Medal in 2002,^[1] and is a retired professor at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he continues to work on NMR spectroscopy.^[2][3]

Biography

School and military service

Ray was educated at Nottingham High School where he won an Open Scholarship to Lincoln College, Oxford in December 1949 and (at the instigation of Lincoln College) deferred his admission to Oxford to complete his military service in the Royal Air Force as a radar instructor, reaching the dizzy rank of acting corporal, un-paid.

Oxford University & early NMR research

In October 1951 he returned to Oxford and began his studies in Chemistry under the tutorship of Rex Richards, going on to do research in Rex's group on NMR of the less-common nuclei (in particular ⁵⁹Co) and earning his MA and D. Phil. degrees.

Joining the magnetic resonance group of Anatole Abragam at Saclay, France in 1957, Ray did postdoctoral research under the direction of the NMR pioneer Robert Pound (on leave from Harvard) on the super-regenerative oscillator, and exploited that device to build a stable high-resolution NMR spectrometer.

Family

In 1958 Ray married Anne-Marie Périnet-Marquet (originally from Haute Savoie, France) and they now have five children, Dominique, Anne, Louise, Jean-Marc, and Lawrence.

Varian Associates, California

After three years at the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, United Kingdom, in the Basic Physics Division, Ray took leave of absence in 1961 to work on double irradiation techniques with Wes Anderson at Varian Associates in Palo Alto, California. This environment proved so stimulating that one year was extended to twelve, and the young family grew up as Californians; three children have now settled on the West Coast.

Along with research at Varian on double-resonance, double-quantum effects, spin-lattice relaxation, and Fourier transformation, Ray assisted in the development of new Varian NMR spectrometers (XL-100 and CFT-20).

Back to Oxford

In 1973 Ray returned to Oxford as University Lecturer and Fellow of Magdalen College, and started his own research group focused on high-resolution NMR methodology.

He received the degree of D. Sc. in 1975 and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1979 (a period known in England as the "Winter of Discontent").

Boosted by the advent of some brilliant young Oxford research students, the group produced several publications on new NMR techniques, including two-dimensional NMR (triggered by the seminal suggestion of Jean Jeener in Brussels).

A Handbook of Magnetic Resonance

On a short sabbatical at CalTech in Pasadena Ray published "A Handbook of Magnetic Resonance" (translated into Japanese and Russian).^[4]

Cambridge

In 1987 Ray made the forbidden transition to "the other place" (Cambridge) to take up the Plummer chair of magnetic resonance, and was elected a Fellow of Jesus College. There he continued his research on NMR methodology and wrote a second book, "Spin Choreography".

Statutory retirement came as an unwelcome surprise in 1999, but Ray disregarded this formal restriction, continuing his research with a long-time colleague Eriks Kupce, and producing his third book, "NMR in Chemistry and Medicine", published in 2003, and later translated into Russian.

External links

• Personal web site (www.ray-freeman.org)
• University of Cambridge Chemistry Department
• Jesus College, Cambridge

References