“For the first 29 years of my career I was a faculty member at two predominately undergraduate institutions,” said Doyle, meaning colleges that offer bachelor’s but not graduate degrees in chemistry. “From there I moved to Research Corporation, where I felt I could better impact the basic infrastructure of science.”
Research Corp., of which Doyle is vice president, is a non-profit organization chartered by Congress in 1912 to support research and educational efforts in science, to organize the range of points of view and to provide recommendations on the conduct or direction of research.
“Simply put, I now ask myself how I can encourage a situation, and particularly the people in that situation, so that they can work at their optimum limits,” said Doyle. He stays involved in the field part-time as a professor at the University of Arizona, he added.
One of Doyle’s most important contributions is his role in a new study of 136 schools from 1986 to 2000 that found, among other results, that only about 25 percent of published papers had a student listed among the authors.
“What we hope will happen is a self-examination by institutions. Is it important for us to continue research? If so, what kind of environment should we have to encourage it?” he explained.
As for himself, it was a high school teacher who originally turned him on to chemistry, Doyle said: “Brother Bernard was only about 5 feet tall, but when he got excited about chemistry he just grew. It was amazing, the enthusiasm he could gather and convey to us.”
Doyle received his undergraduate degree from the College of St. Thomas in 1964 and his Ph.D. from Iowa State University in 1968. He is a member of the ACS organic, inorganic and chemical education divisions.
The ACS George C. Pimentel Award in Chemical Education is sponsored by Dow Chemical Co.