Kurt Alder, German Chemist
Kurt Alder July 10, 1902 - June 20, 1958) was a German chemist. He studied chemistry at the University of Berlin from 1922, and later at the University of Kiel where his PhD was awarded in 1926 for work supervised by Diels. In 1936 he joined I G Farben Industrie, where he worked on synthetic rubber. In 1940 he was appointed Professor of Experimental Chemistry and Chemical Technology at the University of Cologne and Director of the Institute of Chemistry there. Despite the many obstacles to original research in Europe at the time, he continued a systematic program of investigations in the synthesis of organic compounds, publishing over 150 papers in this field. He received the 1950 Nobel Prize in Chemistry which he shared with his teacher Diels for their work on what is now known as the Diels-Alder reaction (considered one of the more useful reactions in organic chemistry since it requires very little energy to create a cyclohexene ring, which is useful in many other organic reactions). He died in 1958 at the age of 55
