Edward I. Solomon

Edward I. Solomon is the Monroe E. Spaght Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Photon Science at Stanford University's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He specializes in physical-inorganic, bioinorganic, and theoretical-inorganic chemistry, focusing on transition metal complexes' electronic structures and their roles in catalysis and biological systems. His research combines spectroscopic methods (CD, MCD, EPR, XAS) with computational approaches to study electron transfer, copper active sites, and non-heme iron enzymes.

Education: PhD from Princeton (1972), postdoctoral work at Caltech and MIT. He joined Stanford in 1982 and has held visiting positions globally. Awards include ACS National Awards, the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Centenary Medal, and membership in the National Academy of Sciences.

Research highlights include defining copper's role in O₂ activation, understanding non-heme iron enzyme mechanisms, and developing zeolite-based catalysts. His lab employs advanced spectroscopic techniques to correlate structure-function relationships in metalloproteins and synthetic analogs.

Teaching includes undergraduate Inorganic Chemistry II and graduate courses in Advanced Physical Inorganic Chemistry and Bioinorganic Chemistry. He advises numerous PhD students and postdocs, contributing to over 1,500 publications.