Dr. Bob Bergman’s advice to future scientists is simple but demanding: choose work you genuinely love, because science requires patience, resilience, and intrinsic passion. His own path was marked by hard work, curiosity‑driven research, and transformative teaching.
Bergman reflects on his unlikely path into chemistry, the discoveries that shaped his career, and his belief that scientific breakthroughs often emerge without a clear practical goal.
Dr. Bergman received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin—Madison in 1966, and he says the department had a profound impact on his career. “The intellectual and research atmosphere in the department, especially interaction with my Ph.D. mentor Jerome A. Berson, reinforced my desire to do independent research in my future career.”
Interestingly enough, Bergman didn’t grow up obsessed with chemistry. In high school, he found that his high school chemistry class was less than inspiring. In an interview with the Berkeley Science Review with Amanda Bischoff, Bergman reflected on his experience. “I went to public high school in Chicago, and I had a lot of good teachers, but [my chemistry teacher] used to come into class and put his feet up on the desk and talk about his vacations in Wyoming,” explains Bergman. “So I suppose you could say that the fact that I became a chemist must mean that I was really attracted to the field, given all the potential for turning me off.”
Despite the odds, Bergman began teaching at the California Institute of Technology in 1967, moving on to serve as a professor at the University of California–Berkeley in 1977. His interests led him to exploratory and mechanistic studies in organic and organotransition metal chemistry. Through his work, he has become best known for his discovery of thermal cyclization of cis-1,5-hexadiyne-3-enes to I,4-dehydrobenzene diradicals, later identified as a crucial DNA-cleaving reaction in several antibiotics; discovery of the first soluble organometallic complexes that undergo intermolecular insertion of transition metals into the carbon-hydrogen bonds of alkanes; and the synthesis and cycloaddition reactions of complexes with metal-heteroatom multiple bonds. Other recent interests include the application of C-H bond activation in synthetic organic chemistry, catalysis by supramolecular systems, and methods for the conversion of biomass to fuels and commodity chemicals.
Dr. Bergman is a pioneering organic chemist whose findings have led to numerous potential commercial applications. The enediyne cyclization mentioned above ultimately became known as the Bergman Cyclization after it was discovered in the 1980’s by workers in the pharmaceutical industry that it has major implications for anti-cancer research. He has also done innovative research in the field of organometallic chemistry. As part of this effort, in 1981, Bergman led a team in the discovery of an unusual new group of organometallic complexes that sever carbon-hydrogen bonds in simple hydrocarbons (alkanes), which created an entirely new subfield of chemistry virtually overnight.
“So I suppose you could say that the fact that I became a chemist must mean that I was really attracted to the field, given all the potential for turning me off.”-Dr. Robert Bergman
Bergman is a towering figure in modern chemistry whose groundbreaking research, prolific scholarship, prestigious awards, and decades of leadership in teaching and outreach have made him one of the field’s most influential contributors. He has been named a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the California Academy of Sciences. He has more than 575 publications and 8 patents to his name. Bergman has earned some two dozen awards for his research and teaching, including an honorary doctorate from Texas A&M University, and in 2017, he won the highly regarded Wolf Prize in Chemistry. He is the initiator and co-developer of the Bay Area Scientists in Schools program, which provides science outreach for elementary school students in the Berkeley area. Now that he has emeritus status, Bergman remains active in research, teaching, and outreach. Bergman has held a position on the UW–Madison Department of Chemistry Board of Advisors since 2011.