Henry Taube

Henry Taube was the son of ethnic German Mennonite immigrants in the small prairie farming village of Neudorf, Saskatchewan. Earning degrees at the University of Saskatchewan before completing his doctorate at UC Berkeley, Taube became professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago and Stanford University.

Taube established modern inorganic chemistry by elucidating how electrons hop between metal ions during chemical reactions, distinguishing between "inner-sphere" (bridged) and "outer-sphere" mechanisms. For his foundational work on the mechanisms of electron transfer reactions, especially in metal complexes, Taube was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Chemistry as the sole recipient.