The Retirement of Donald J. Burton
Emeritus Shriner-Carver Professor of Chemistry

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

            On June 2nd, many of us gathered to recognize Prof. Don Burton’s retirement after a long and very productive career at The University of Iowa.  And what an impressive career he’s had!  As I mentioned that evening, ~65 students have completed their PhD degree with Don as their mentor, and many more have studied with him as visiting faculty, postdoctoral associates, undergraduates in research, and high school students.  Don has published more than 350 papers reporting the results of these studies, and continues to this day very actively writing up past research results for publication.

            In recognition of Don’s career, his children have begun efforts to establish the Donald J. and Margaret Burton Scholarship.  This award would be used to encourage undergraduates to pursue degrees in chemistry.  Several of you already have sent contributions to join the Burton family in this very worthy effort.  If anyone else is interested in making a contribution to this cause, donations can be sent to The University of Iowa Foundation.  These should be directed to the General Chemistry Development Fund, with a notation that they be used for the Burton scholarships.

For those who were not able to attend this event, I’m sure that Don would still appreciate hearing from you via cards, letters, or e-mail.  For those of you who did attend, Amber Seaton took a number of pictures that evening, which are available here.   Amber also has sent out copies of the powerpoint presentation that showed that evening to those who have requested it.  It is available here as a PDF file (11.4 MB size) or Powerpoint presentation file (6.7 MB size).

To all of you who were able to attend, or have shown their appreciation to Don in some other way, I would like to extend my sincere thanks.

                                                                               Sincerely yours,

                                                                               David F. Wiemer
                                                                               Professor & Chair