Crystallography in the Americas

|  North America  |  Canada  |

The American Crystallographic Association represents both Canada and the United States of America to the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr).There is a Canadian division of the ACA and a Canadian representative on the ACA Council. In 2014 the Latin American Crystallographic Association (LACA) became a Regional Associate of the IUCr. Several Latin American countries have a national crystallographic organization including Mexico www.smcr.fisica.unam.mx and Brazil www.abcristalografia.org.br. Here we focus on advances in structural science in the US and Canada, as well as highlighting scientific outreach activities of prominent US/Canadian researchers to Latin America.

 

Crystallography in North America

William Duax"Crystallography in North America" 

William Duax, 2014, IUCr Newsletter, Volume 22, Number 1

In 2013, Richard Dickerson received the ACA's Patterson Award in recognition of his ground breaking atomic resolution structures of DNA oligomers... read more

 

Crystallography in Canada

Carol Huber"Some Early Canadian Crystallographers" 

Carol Huber, 2009, CNCC Newsletter No 1

Probably the first Canadian-born scientist to have an important influence on the development of crystallography in Canada was William H. Barnes... read more

Yvon Le Page"Larry Calvert (1924-1993): Metals, accuracy, powder method and structure databases; A lasting heritage" 
Yvon Le Page, 2009, CNCC Newsletter No 1
Lauriston (Larry) Derwent Calvert was the son of Fred Clifford Calvert, a New Zealand Mining Engineer who worked mostly for tin dredging in Malaysia and for gold exploration or mining at many places in the south hemisphere, registering his son at boarding schools where possible... read more

Frank Hawthorne"Mineralogical Crystallography in Canada"
Frank Hawthorne, 2009, CNCC Newsletter No 1
Canada has a long tradition in Mineralogical Crystallography, and several founder members of the Canadian Mineralogist, a major international mineralogical journal, were crystallographers... read more

Farid Ahmed"For the Love of Computers in The 1950's" 
Farid R. Ahmed, 2009, CNCC Newsletter No 1
After graduating in 1950 with a BSc Honours in mathematics from the University of Leeds, I wanted to continue my study for a PhD in mathematics...[Professor E. G. Cox] explained that they would be interested in having me pursue a PhD degree in crystallography... read more

Abraham Clearfield"Crispin Calvo (1930-1977)" 
Abraham Clearfield, 2009, CNCC Newsletter No 1
Cris and I were classmates at Rutgers in the chemistry department doctoral program. Cris' project involved the synthesis and structures of polyvanadates and polymolybdates. Although he obtained many crystals... read more

Michael James"Early Days of Protein Crystallography in Canada" 

Michael James, 2009, CNCC Newsletter No 1

Crystallographic research in Canada dates back to the 1960's when a number of centres began investigations into various protein structures. At the NRC in Ottawa there was a strong contingent of small molecule crystallographers led by W.F Barnes.... read more

Eric Gabe"Eric Gabe" 

Eric Gabe, 2009, CNCC Newsletter No 1

I graduated from Cardiff University with a B.Sc in 1957 and continued on to postgraduate work in crystal structure analysis under the direction of Dr D.F. Grant, obtaining a Ph.D in 1960... read more

Stanley Cameron"Osvald Knop" 

T. Stanley Cameron, 2009, CNCC Newsletter No 1

One of the first to do crystallography in the Maritime Provinces was Osvald Knop (Ossie). Born in 1922, he arrived in Halifax in 1949... read more

Richard Bader"QTAIM: quantum theory of atoms in molecules" 
Richard F.W. Bader, 2009, CNCC Newsletter No 1

Science is based on observation. Among the most important of the quantities accessible to measurement is the distribution of charge - nuclear and electronic - that constitutes matter and determines its properties... read more

Stanley Cameron"Comments on QTAIM" 
T. Stanley Cameron, 2009, CNCC Newsletter No 1

The QTAIM approach to the examination of electron density has provided crystallographers with a remarkable tool to examine, experimentally, the fine details of the electron density throughout a crystal... read more

Andrew Booth"A Life in Science" 
Andrew Booth, 2009, CNCC Newsletter No 1

A few words of introduction. I am the last surviving member of the group of X-ray crystallographers who worked in the Chemistry department at Birmingham University in the early 1940's... read more

Yvon Le Page"19th century basics spearhead 21st century progress: some autobiographic details" 
Yvon Le Page, 2009, CNCC Newsletter No 1

This is the "MISSYM story"...This very simple and small part of my work at NRC is now used to delegate so much quantum-modeling brainwork to computers that it may be worth consigning the sequence of concepts and events on paper.... read more

Stanley Nyburg"Stanley C. Nyburg" 
Stanley Nyburg, 2009, CNCC Newsletter No 1

I was born in London UK in 1924. My father, a clerk with J. Lyons & Co. the caterers, was an amputee, having lost his left arm at Ypres in World War 1. I gained admission to grammar school in 1936. In 1937 my father died and our family was left in straitened circumstances... read more

David Brown"I. David Brown" 
I. D. Brown, 2009, CNCC Newsletter No 1

I studied for my bachelor's degrees in General Science and Honours Physics at King's College, London, UK, at the time when Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins were determining the structure of DNA... read more

Allen Larson"A. C. Larson in Canada"
Allen C. Larson, 2009, CNCC Newsletter No 1

I had joined the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL) in 1956 after graduating from Washington University with a PhD. Working with Don Cromer and Brad Roof studying the structure of alloys of plutonium... read more

Sandy Mathieson"An Interesting Interlude with Pyrolytic Graphite " 
Sandy Mathieson, 2009, CNCC Newsletter No 1

In 1972, after a brief visit to New Zealand, Larry Calvert and his colleague, Eric Gabe, called in at the (then) Chemical Physics Division of CSIRO in Melbourne. Discussion with the Chief of the Division, Dr A.L.G.Rees, led to Larry coming to spend an extended spell with us in 1973 - 1974... read more

Joseph Donnay"Veritas vos Liberabit: code of ethics in scientific work" 
Joseph (José) Désiré Hubert Donnay, 1995, Canadian Mineralogist

1. Observe conscientiously. Record faithfully. Reason coldly. Infer prudently. State your conclusions courageously... read more