Yorke Rhodes received a B. S.
in soil chemistry and an M.S. in organic chemistry from the
University of Delaware. After completing his Ph.D. at the
University of Illinois in 1964 he was a National Institutes
of Health Postdoctoral Fellow with Kenneth B. Wiberg at Yale
University. He joined the faculty of New York University in
1965 and developed research areas in SO2 solvent chemistry,
electrocyclic reactions, small ring chemistry, and
carbocations, especially neighboring group cyclopropane-assisted
cation rearrangements. He moved to the Washington Square
campus in 1973 after a sabbatical leave with Horst Prinzbach
at the Universitat Freiburg in West Germany. He was a State
Department exchange visitor to Prague, Czechoslovakia, and
Zagreb, Yugoslavia in 1977 and was also Gastprofessor with
Ivar Ugi at the Technische Universitat Munchen (TUM)in 1977,
followed by a stay in 1978 as Alexander von Humboldt U.S.
Senior Scientist Awardee at the TUM with Ugi. Nasa/IEEE
Summer Fellowships were held at the Jet Propulsion
Laboratories at Cal Tech in Pasadena with Wes Huntress in
1980 and 1981 (astrochemistry). In 1987, he was professor
associe at the Centre d'Astrophysique, Universite de
Grenoble, France, with Alain Omont (astro-polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbon chemistry). Rhodes was awarded the
Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence in the College of
Arts and Science in 1991, and again in 1996. Professor
Rhodes is director of the Dual Degree Program in Science and
Engineering at New York University and Stevens Institute of
Technology, resides as Professor in Residence in a
University residence hall, and is very active in the New
York Academy of Sciences and American Chemical Society local
section activities, sponsoring a variety of symposia, poster
sessions and other activities for students. He was chair of
the ACS New York Section for 1998. As an ACS Councilor, he
is also a member of the Local Section Activities Committee
and welcomes discussions about local sections. He has served
on Department of Education review panels and is an
educational consultant/evaluator for several undergraduate
and high school research mentoring programs.
"Planetary Chemistry: Differences
in the Solar System Atmospheres"
The layers of gases that envelop the planets in our solar
system contain a wide variety of chemical elements and
compounds. Life on earth exists because of our abundant
supply of oxygen (along with the protective layer of ozone
and the heat-trapping effects of carbon dioxide and other
"greenhouse gases").
If we look at the atmospheres of other planets, we find
hydrogen, helium, argon, nitrogen, krypton, sodium, methane,
ammonia, carbon monoxide, nitric oxide, sulfur dioxide,
formaldehyde, and many other substances. There are
similarities in the atmospheres of the terrestrial planets
(Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) and between those of the
four gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune). This
presentation will explore the characteristics of the
atmosphere of each of the planets in our solar system.
