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Honoring A Nobel Laureate
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Chemistry teacher Mandy Morgan, Science Department Chair Anita Loose-Brown, Mary Gao ’15 and Pedro Escobar ’15, with the Knowles family: daughter Elizabeth Knowles, Andrew McIntire, daughter Lesley Knowles McIntire, son Peter Knowles, and Head of School Pieter Mulder
William Standish Knowles, from the 1934 Trail
William Standish Knowles ’34 arrived at Berkshire when he was just twelve. The son of George B. Knowles ’09, one of founder Seaver Buck’s “old boys,” as Mr. Buck referred to Berkshire’s first few classes of graduates, and the brother of Jim Knowles ’33, Dr. Knowles went on to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2001. Berkshire honored its Nobel Laureate this spring with an all-school assembly during which Head of School Pieter Mulder painted a picture of Knowles’ time at Berkshire and AP chemistry teacher Mandy Morgan explained the significance (and translated the chemistry) of Dr. Knowles’ research. At Berkshire, Billy Knowles was an academic standout who, upon acceptance to Harvard, was deemed too young for college. Mr. Mulder read from Knowles’ college application, completed by Mr. Buck himself, which reported that Knowles was “unusually capable in all subjects except English, in which he is only fair,” giving students in the audience great hope and a good chuckle. At Mr. Buck’s suggestion, Knowles took a PG year at Andover before continuing on at college. He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Harvard in 1939 and a doctoral degree from Columbia in 1942, and soon after began a long career in industry and research.
living with Parkinson’s disease. Immediately following the school assembly, where Dr. Knowles’ son Peter announced a Mountain Day (something that young Billy surely would have approved of!), the chemistry classroom and lab in Bellas/Dixon was officially dedicated in memory of William S. Knowles, Nobel Laureate and son of an original Berkshire “old boy.”
Berkshire Bulletin
Dr. Knowles was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in chiral chemistry, sharing it with Ryoji Noyori of Nagoya University in Japan and K. Barry Sharpless of the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego. Knowles’ research identified a breakthrough process in the development of a drug that has prolonged and improved the quality of life of millions of people
From the Desk of Mr. Buck: At right is a 1933 letter from Seaver Buck to William’s father, George Knowles ’09, thanking him for supporting Berkshire during the Depression, a time when, “All over the country our boys are waking up to the importance of putting their shoulders to the wheel.”