Gerasimos J. Karabatsos

 

Gerasimos John Karabatsos was born on May 17, 1932, in Chomatada, Greece; the town must be rather small, because it could not be found in the Rand McNally atlas. His father was a MD; he had a younger brother, Photis, who unfortunately died in his twenties after a brief illness. "Mike", as he is known to his friends and family, knew the war years when Greece was occupied by the Nazis. At the end of World War II, Mike came along to the USA to study. He took an A.B. degree at Adelphi College (an appropriate place for a Greek) in 1954, then entered Harvard where he received the M.A. in 1956 and the Ph.D. in 1959, working with Professor Paul D. Bartlett. Mike stayed on there for a short while as a postdoc, then joined the MSU faculty as an assistant professor. He rose quickly through the ranks, becoming full professor in 1966.

Mike married Marianna Marris, a beauty from Athens, in 1956, and they have four children, Lelena, Yanna, Jason, and Byron.

In January 1975, Mike became associate chairman of the Chemistry Department; then that fall became chairman, where he served for eleven years. He was especially effective in bringing in major equipment grants, and in expanding the faculty to include many exceptional young scientists. Since 1987, he has not only remained Professor at MSU, but also became Professor at the University of Crete.

Mike published over 75 scientific papers, mainly on applications of NMR spectroscopy to organic chemistry. He used 13C to study carbocation reactions and other isotopes to study kinetic isotope effects and the stereochemistry of biological reactions, particularly those of NADH. Over the years, he guided 34 graduate students to their Ph.D. degrees, and 9 to an M.S.

Mike has been an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow (1963-66), and a NSF Senior Post-doctoral Fellow at Berkeley (1965-66). Among his awards are the ACS Award in Petroleum Chemistry (1971) and the Distinguished Faculty Award at MSU (1971). He has been a corresponding member of the Academy of Athens, Greece, since 1970.