Alexander Smith (chemist) - Biography

Biography

He graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1886 and received the degree of Ph.D. at Munich in 1889. After coming to the United States, Smith was professor of chemistry and mineralogy at Wabash College (1890-94) and later a faculty member at the University of Chicago (1895-1911). His former student James Bert Garner at Wabash College went on to invent the gas mask. In 1911 he was called to Columbia University to be professor and head of the department of chemistry, and in the same year he held the presidency of the American Chemical Society. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1915.

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