Due in part to Smalley’s leadership, the United States launched the NNI in 2000. NNI is a sweeping federal research-and-development program that coordinates the nanotech efforts of nearly two dozen federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and NASA. NNI funding has more than doubled in the past five years, with federal spending for 2005 topping $1 billion.

At the time of NNI’s creation, Lane served as assistant to the president of the United States for science and technology and director of the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy. He said Smalley played a crucial role in getting the initiative approved, both by President Bill Clinton and by Congress. Smalley’s testimony on Capitol Hill, in particular, helped establish him as one of the leading voices for nanotechnology.

“Rick overwhelmingly carried the day,” said Caltech’s James Heath, one of Smalley’s PhD students on the buckyball discovery, who has risen to become a leading voice for nanotechnology. “He sat there in front of Congress with no hair, as a result of the chemotherapy, and talked about the promise of nanotechnology for cancer and other diseases and how it would pay off for his children. It was absolutely riveting.”

Smalley’s fervent belief that nanotubes were a wonder material that could solve some of humanity’s most intractable problems—such as clean energy, clean water, and economical space travel—led him to crusade for more public support for science and to take up the mantle of business after more than three decades in the laboratory.

Smalley helped found Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc. in 2000 to make sure his discoveries made it to the marketplace where they could benefit society. He was convinced that nanotubes could be used to solve society’s problems only if they were manufactured in bulk and processed economically. In 2002, he embarked on a two-year crusade to promote the use of nanotechnology to tackle what he described as the No.1 problem facing humanity in the 21st century—the need for cheap, clean energy. Smalley crisscrossed the country, gave dozens of keynote addresses, testified before Congress, and met with countless leaders in government, academia, and industry.

“Rick cared little about honors and much more about how applications of nanoscience might help resolve pressing human problems in energy accessibility, food supplies, and medical diagnosis and treatment,” said Malcolm Gillis, University Professor, the Ervin Kenneth Zingler Professor of Economics, and professor of management at Rice. “In meetings with Rick in the past year, it was clear to me that the primary reasons for his dogged, determined battle against his disease had first to do with his family and second with his desire to witness at least a few of the social benefits he expected from buckyballs, buckytubes, and other nanoparticles.”

Smalley was born June 6, 1943, in Akron, Ohio, and spent most of his youth in Kansas City. He was the youngest of four children. The childhood influences he credited most for his success were his mother’s love of science, the skills she imparted in draftsmanship, his father’s tenacity and mechanical abilities, and the inspirational example of his aunt, who was one of the first women in the country to earn a PhD in chemistry.

The launch of Sputnik in 1957 excited his interest in science, and he first became serious about education at the age of 16. In an autobiography written for the Nobel committee in 1996, Smalley also credited his high school chemistry teacher, Victor Gustafson, as a key inspiration. “[Chemistry] was the first class I had ever taken with my sister Linda, who was a year older than I and was a far better student than I had ever been,” Smalley said. “The result was that, by the end of the year, my sister and I finished with the top two grades in the class. We hardly ever missed a question on an exam. It was an exhilarating experience for me and still ranks as the single most important turning point in my life, even from my current perspective nearly four decades later.”

At his aunt’s urging, Smalley enrolled as a chemistry major at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, in 1961. He transferred to the University of Michigan two years later, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1965. Smalley began his PhD studies at Princeton in 1969 after four years work at Shell Chemical Co. in New Jersey and the birth of his eldest son, Chad. His studies in the Princeton laboratory of Elliot R. Bernstein marked Smalley’s first exposure to the discipline of chemical physics, and Smalley said he learned from Bernstein “a penetrating, intense style of research that I had never known before.”

Smalley came to Rice as an assistant professor in 1976, following three years of postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago under Donald H. Levy. Smalley rapidly became “a major intellectual force” in chemistry and chemical physics at Rice, Lane said, helping found the Rice Quantum Institute in 1979. He was named the Gene and Norman Hackerman Chair in Chemistry in 1982 and was appointed a professor of physics in 1990.

“Rick made great contributions to science,” Curl said. “While fullerenes and nanotubes dominated the end of his research career, he had made many contributions of towering magnitude before them.”

Smalley was the pivotal force in the development of nanoscience and technology at Rice. He foresaw the potential of the discoveries emerging at this scale and moved with characteristic intensity to forge Rice’s program as the founding director of the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST). His efforts resulted in the construction of Dell Butcher Hall and the endowment of chairs and the recruitment of faculty pursuing nano-related research in departments throughout science and engineering. Indeed, almost a quarter of Rice’s faculty hires in science and engineering since 1985 have expertise relevant to nanoscale science and technology, and many others have incorporated this area into their research agenda. This robust and enthusiastic community will continue the tradition of excellence and vision that Smalley initiated almost two decades ago.

“I think of Rick as the father of nanotechnology in the sense that, better than anyone else, he articulated the vision of its future and how it would impact the world, and he did so in a kind of universal language that was understandable and inspiring to everyone,” said William Barnett, trustee emeritus and former chair of the Rice Board of Trustees.

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