Dr. Robert Gawley was a tenured professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Arkansas, long-time researcher in organic and bio-chemistry, and led many grant-funded research programs and study abroad opportunities for students. Gawley obtained his bachelor of science in chemistry from Stetson University in 1970 and a doctorate in organic chemistry from Duke University in 1975. He served as a research associate at the University of North Carolina from 1975 to 1977. He was a visiting professor at Colorado State University in 1984 and Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zürich, Germany from 1993-1994. Gawley then became a faculty member at Miami Univeristy until 2003 when he become a tenured professor at the University of Arkansas at the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. Gawley was a member of the organic division of the American Chemical Society, Sigma Xi and Phi Lambda Upsilon. He served on the steering committee and became a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2006. Later, he collaborated internationally with colleges in Germany and Ireland as well as EU governments to establish the U.S.-E.U Atlantis transatlantic dual degree exchange program in chemistry, facilitated by the University of Arkansas office of Study Abroad and International Exchange, which commenced in 2010. He was appointed chair-elect of the organic division of the American Chemical Society in 2010 and was to serve as chair of the division starting in 2013, before his unexpected death while skiing near Steamboat Springs, CO, on March 8th, 2013 at age 64.

Some of Gawley’s research interests included stereochemistry and methods of asymmetric synthesis; carbanion chemistry, reactions and synthetic applications of chiral organometallics; new NHC carbene ligands; and dendrimers as ligands for monofunctionalization of nanocrystals. The Robert E. Gawley Papers collection contains much pertinent research and work in these areas as well as others.